Influence of Previous Work Experience on Self and Team Efficacy of Nurses in Small and Medium Sized Hospitals

Abstract

Introduction:Nurses have always been in high demand in Japan due to the advancement of aging society with falling child birthrates and decline of population of people. A growing need for nursing workforce has brought about the increase in male nurses and foreign nurses, and the introduction of entrance examination systems for adults working in society. Hence, nursing teams currently comprise nurses with various backgrounds. In particular, the number of new graduates with previous work experience has increased. With an increment in non- first career nurses, they are attracting attention, and contributing team medical care and the development of nurse organizations based on their diverse experiences. According to self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1977) 1), self-efficacy and team efficacy are essential to develop closely-knit organization. In this study, we aimed to clarify the influence of previous work experiences on self-efficacy and team efficacy of nurses.

Methods: To clarify the influence of previous work experience on self-/team efficacy from the viewpoint of age, gender, and job position, a self-reported questionnaire was distributed to 784 nurses at 18 hospitals less than 300 beds in 2016. Valid responses were obtained from 417 nurses (valid response rate: 53.2%), 37 of which were head nurses and the others were staff nurses. They were all female nurses. The mean age was 37.89 years old (SD = 9.31). The questionnaire consisted of two sections, the first of which was a face sheet. The second section was designed to assess the degree of self-/team efficacy using the scale developed by Takahashi et al. (2010) based on CEQS scale.

Results and Future study: We hypothesized that staff nurses with previous work experience have high self-efficacy and head nurses with previous work have high team efficacy. However, contrary to our hypothesis, the results did not support this hypothesis (see Figure). In the field of sports research, it was found that high team effectiveness is positively correlated with team performance. However, for nurses with other professional experience, we think that there is a possibility that team performance cannot be fully achieved by high level of individual self-efficacy. In further endeavor, we need to proceed to research on factors enhancing the team's effectiveness consisted of diverse background.