Factors influencing the work motivation of nurses engaged in medical safety duties

Abstract

Many of the personnel who take up the central role in the implementation of medical safety measures in various departments are nurses. Medical safety measures involve a wide range of sometimes unclearly defined duties and it is assumed that the nurses responsible for these duties have a variety of opinions regarding them. As such, this study investigated the factors affecting the work motivation of nurses engaged in medical safety duties. A total of 429 national, public, and private university hospitals around the country, as well as facilities with at least 200 beds in Tokyo area, were asked to participate in the study. Approval was granted from 103 facilities and from these, 141 nurses, who were engaged in medical safety duties full-time or part-time, were the participants. Responses were received from 126 of the 141 participants, and most of them were engaged in medical safety duties in full-time managerial positions at facilities with at least 200 beds. A multiple regression analysis showed the following positive factors that influenced work motivation：that they could decide independently on how to undertake their work, that they could exhibit leadership while performing their duties, and, that they could improve themselves through their medical safety duties. A chosen negative factor was that insufficient numbers of staff were assigned to their departments. This negative factor was supported by data from the Japanese Central Social Insurance Medical Council that showed a lack of personnel within safety management departments.