Difference of Length of Clinical Nursing Experience Dilemmas regarding Physical Restraints to Elderly Patients

Abstract

The aim of this study was to exam the relationship between years of experience and the levels of dilemma in regard to physical restraints for elderly patients. As for the research design and method, the levels of dilemma was measured by the questionnaire administered to the clinical nurses(n = 1,929)at 14 hospitals in the Kansai area. The nurses were divided into three groups with the length of experience ; 3mos.-3yrs., 4-10yrs., 11-36yrs., resulting in 1,477(76.6 %) eligible questionnaires, and a one-way analysis of variance was performed. As a result, a significant difference was found, the nurses with 11-36 years of experience scoring higher than any other group. Findings on the dilemma regarding physical restrains for the elderly suggested that improvement of ethics education programs for the experienced nurses would be necessary in clinical settings.