Practice Environment of Nurses in Tertiary Public and Private Hospitals in La Union

Abstract

Global perspectives of nursing practice are ever-changing and perhaps shaped by the environment where the nurses’ work. The nurses’ practice environment (NPE) was defined as the organizational characteristics of a work setting that facilitate or constrain professional nursing practice (Lake, 2002). NPE along with factors and outcomes were assessed in different countries and regions with studies proving that a favorable NPE enhances quality of healthcare and positive outcomes for the nurses, the hospital and the patients. Based on the assumptions of Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Theory, beyond the physical atmosphere, the nurses also must also have an environment that support their professional practice and development. Bringing focus on NPE is equivalent to the path of promoting nurses’ welfare regardless of the type of facility; however, there is a scarcity on the assessment of the practice environment of nurses between public and private hospitals including the factors that could significantly influence such. Therefore, this study aims to describe and compare the practice environment of nurses in tertiary public and private hospitals in La Union with an analysis of factors associated to and influences NPE. This cross-sectional study used descriptive, comparative and correlational designs. Ethical clearance was observed accordingly. A total of 540 nurses participated with from the four (4) tertiary hospitals particularly two from each public and private. Data were gathered systematically using a demographic questionnaire and the Practice Environment Scale of the Nurse Work Index (PES-NWI) of Lake (2002) that has a Likert scale for each indicator. SPSS v. 21 was used to examine the descriptive and inferential statistics of the study at a preset level of significance of p < 0.05.