Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
than half the respondents (n = 51, 58.6%) felt that certification of
competencies were appropriate for nurses who intend to extend or
expand their clinical roles.
The combined responses to the Role Extension scale indicated that
respondents had a generally positive attitude towards role
extension. With 10 items in this scale and a total value of between
10 and 50, where 50 is an extremely positive attitude, respondents
attained a mean value of 30.8, varying between 18 and 45. The
mean scores for individual items on the role extension scale was
obtained and ranked in order, from the highest to lowest scores
(Table 3). Mean scores of below 3 indicate a high level of
disagreement, whereas mean scores of above 3 indicate a high level
of agreement to the individual item on the Role Extension scale. The
data indicated that the highest scores, which indicated the highest
level of agreement, were nurses’ mean response to the benefits of
role extension such as improving the quality and continuity of
patient care.
Table 3 Ranked Mean Responses to Role Extension
Improve quality of care
Increase continuity of care
Stess from increase
workload
Less time for nursing
activites
Reducing doctor's work?
Increases collaboration
Meet new needs
Fragmentation of care?
Delegation of tasks
Money saving exercise
Mean Std. Deviation
3.6705 .95558
3.6591 .94548
3.5227 1.08254
3.4886 1.20339
3.3864 1.23579
3.3750 .96267
3.3636 1.10570
3.1023 1.16500
2.9773 1.31287
2.9545 1.14379
Rankings based on mean scores on a 5-item
Likert scale identifying respondents’ degree
of agreement or disagreement, with
strongly disagree: 1, disagree: 2, unsure: 3,
agree: 4, strongly agree: 5.
The mean value of the Role Expansion scale showed that
respondents in this study had a generally positive attitude towards
the concept. Table 4 illustrates the mean scores for individual items
in the Role Expansion scale, which were arranged in ranked order,
from the highest to lowest mean scores. Mean scores of below 3
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