Self-Efficacy, Teamwork, Leadership Behaviors, and Continuous Quality Improvement of Professional Nurses of a Tertiary-care Hospital in Bangkok

Abstract

              The role of a hospital is to provide quality health services to clients. Therefore, the hospital must have a continuous quality improvement process for its sustainability in relation to the standard of Hospital Accreditation (HA). This cross-sectional research was aimed at assessment of the level of self-efficacy, teamwork, leadership behaviors, and continuous quality improvement (CQI) of professional nurses of a tertiary care hospital in Bangkok and to explore relationships among general characteristics, self-efficacy, teamwork, leadership behaviors, and continuous quality improvement. The study population was 1,124 professional nurses who have been working in this hospital for at least 2 years and were assigned to participate in quality improvement activities. Data were collected from 21 December 2010 to 10 January 2011 by self-administered questionnaire. The response rate was 81.9 percent. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, chi-square, and stepwise multiple regression. The results indicated that the overall CQI, self-efficacy, teamwork, and leadership behaviors were at moderate levels of 42.1 percent, 67.3 percent, 60.1 percent, and 47.1 percent, respectively. The significant variables which could explain the variation of CQI of professional nurses were leadership behaviors, teamwork, and nursing education of bachelor degree at 42.5 percent (R2 adj. 0.425). The nursing department should provide training on leadership and teamwork skill development such as group dynamics/relationship and situation analysis of the organization on conflict management at least once a year. The administrator should also support professional nurses for higher education to promote their CQI performance.

Key words: self-efficacy, teamwork, leadership behaviors, continuous quality improvement