Abstract
Purpose: To describe the characteristics of the attitudes towards community activities among public health nurses promoting community activities.
Methods: Self-reported anonymous questionnaires were mailed to 485 public health nurses working in a municipality in Japan. The nurses were asked open-ended questions about their motivations and beliefs regarding community activities. Responses were collected from 101 participants. Data were analyzed with content analysis.
Results: We classified 288 contexts into 15 categories and 48 sub-categories, and extracted three core categories. The three core categories were: attitude of seeking to develop an organized system and cooperative relations within the organization, attitude of enhancing the expertise of the public health nurses, and attitude of self-approval and self-management.
Conclusion: These findings show that the characteristics of the attitudes of the nurses towards community activities were as follows: working with co-workers and peers sharing the same vision and attitudes to establish a sympathetic and respectful relationship in the workplace, continuous training, professionalism and competency. These attitudes were suggested as prerequisites for community activities among public health nurses.
