2009 Volume 12 Issue 2 Pages 94-105
The purpose of this study is to examine the details of clinical training to be provided to Filipino nurses to accept them into the Japanese hospitals. For this purpose, we conducted the continuous observation surveys both in hospitals of Japan and the Philippines. Each nurse was attended by one investigator, who recorded and encoded the nursing tasks every 30 seconds, and then summarized the frequency with which each task was observed based on the classification table of nursing practice. When the practices are arranged in descending order of observation frequency in the medical wards and surgical wards, the top three practice, i.e., "recording and checking of documents", "reporting and information exchanging" and "assistance of medical diagnosis and treatment" are common in both countries, although the sub-items included in the task of "assistance of medical diagnosis and treatment" are different.
There is a difference among the nursing practice ranked in fourth place or lower between the two countries. The results obtained in Japan show that the fourth-place practice is "care of daily life", followed by "instruction along with medical treatment" and "observation and rounds in the ward", indicating the tendency toward the tasks directly related to patients' care. On the other hand, the tasks ranked in fourth place or lower in the Philippines demonstrate the tendency that the tasks directly related to patients' care are fewer.
In summary, the principle nursing tasks are common between the two countries, while some differences are found due to the specific medical circumstances and the cultural gap. To accept the Filipino nurses, the trainings should aim to (1) continuously support their mastery of the Japanese language essential to the information recording and exchanging, (2) improve their practical abilities to directly care for patients, and (3) deepen their understanding of the nursing system specific to Japan, as well as the characteristics of the Japanese society and culture.
