Management of Continuing Education of Nurse Midwives by Chief Nurses in Community Hospitals in Southern Thailand

Received 10 June 2009; received in revised form 10 June 2009; accepted 25 November 2009.

Purpose

To explore the levels of continuing education management in hospitals according to their size, and to investigate problems in the management of continuing education of nurse midwives by chief nurses in community hospitals.

Methods

The target population was 128 chief nurses, 103 of whom (80.47%) returned the questionnaires. Data were collected using a questionnaire that had been tested for its content validity by three experts (content validity index was .80 and the Cronbach's alpha was .83). Descriptive statistics and ANOVA were used to investigate if differences existed among groups.

Results

The mean score of the level of continuing education management in nurse midwives for the chief nurses was low. The levels of education management for chief nurses according to hospital size (10-bed, 30-bed, and 60-bed hospitals) were not significantly different (p > .05). The problems for chief nurses in the management of continuing education in nurse midwives in the community hospitals were: lack of manpower (70%); financial problems (45%); lack of lecturers in advanced nurse midwifery (38%); insufficient number of courses in advanced nurse midwifery (29%); length of time for study leave taken for training (21%); and safety problems in the unrest areas in the southern provinces (21%).

Conclusion

The levels of continuing education management by chief nurses in all the community hospitals were low, primarily due to a lack of manpower and budgetary constraints. Therefore, the Nursing Council of Thailand should provide training and funds to support advanced nurse midwifery education programs in all parts of the country.

Key Words: community hospitals , continuing education , hospital personnel management , nurse midwives , nursing care management

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References

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a Associate Professor, Faculty of Nursing, Prince of Songkla University, Songkla, Thailand

b Assistant Professor, Faculty of Nursing, Prince of Songkla University, Songkla, Thailand

c Lecturer, Faculty of Nursing, Prince of Songkla University, Songkla, Thailand

Correspondence to: Phechnoy Singchungchai, RN, PhD, Associate Professor, Faculty of Nursing, Prince of Songkla University, Songkla 90112, Thailand

PII: S1976-1317(09)60026-8

doi:10.1016/S1976-1317(09)60026-8

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