Title : Fear in nursing: Results of a cross sectional survey study and implications for nursing practice
Abstract:
There are many dangers that nurses face in their work. Increased societal violence and work-related exposures have led to increased fears, and increased attrition of the nursing workforce. This contributes to poorer patient outcomes. This fear has detrimental effects on the nurse, and can also cause changes in the work environment. The potential change in decision making that fear causes can affect patient outcomes. Fear may change behavior and may be fundamental in understanding nurses’ response in dealing with the work environment. The purpose of this study was to measure the degree in which nurses identify fear associated with 20 themes found in nursing literature utilizing the Revised Fear in Nursing Questionnaire, a web-based survey instrument. For this study, fear was defined as “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, whether the threat is real or imagined, the feeling or condition of being afraid” (Dictionary.com, 2011). The results of this cross sectional quantitative, descriptive study on fear in nursing will be presented. The Revised Fear in Nursing Questionnaire with reliability, validity and factor analysis will be described. Additionally, the results from 413 Registered Nurse respondents from a for-profit university in the United States of America (USA) will be presented. The relationship between fear associated with work and 12 demographic characteristics were assessed and descriptive, correlational analysis and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) will be reported. Important findings include that 65% of the nurses responding selected agree or strongly agree to the question “the administration in the organization where I work will not protect me” (mean 2.82). The highest levels of fear were reported by the emergency department nurses, those who hold a baccalaureate degree, work over 9 hours in a shift and work during the night shift. Implications for nursing practice, administration, academia, policy, and research will be discussed. The Revised Fear in Nursing Questionnaire will be introduced. The session will end with a discussion of the expanding this research to an international scale.
