Perceived Managerial Support And Practice Environment Among Nurses In A Selected Tertiary Hospital In Metro Manila, Philippines

Abstract

Managerial support in professional nursing practice is crucial in establishing and maintaining a healthy practice environment. It is believed that these variables play an important role in staff retention, job satisfaction, and turnover rates. This academic work determined the perceived managerial support, practice environment and its relation to staff nurse's demographic profile employed in a selected level 4 government-owned and controlled corporate tertiary healthcare facility located in Metro Manila, Philippines.

The study used a descriptive correlational design and facilitated two international validated research instruments, namely Supervisory support scale (SSS) tool, and American Association of Critical-care Nursing Healthy Work Environment Assessment Tool (AACN-HWEAT). Pearson correlation coefficient was used to identify the relationship of perceived level managerial support and nurse-respondents' practice environment. The Chi-square test of independence was facilitated to identify the difference between practice environment and demographic profile of nurse-respondents.

Data gathered from nurse-respondents (N = 519) showed a high level of perceived managerial support and positive practice environments. However, results highlighted that only one of the six healthy work environment essential standards, namely the true collaboration, scored the lowest mean value, ( M = 1.92 ; SD = 0.32 ) depicting a negative practice environment. While the SSS domains mostly show significant correlations on HWE essential standards, the effective decision-making essential standard found no significant correlation with SSS being reliable domain, r(517) = 0.063 p > 0.152 whereas the authentic leadership essential standard showed non-significant relationship with both SSS domains, namely respects uniqueness, r(517) = 0.005 p>.990; and being reliable, r(517) = - 0.054 p>.220. Also, study findings showed a significant association between practice environment essential standards and staff nurse's demographic profile, p < 0.0001.

Nurse practice environment should be a priority for healthcare leaders and administrators because it is evidently a critical factor in the provision of quality patient care, organizational success, as well as in the improvement of the overall professional nursing practice.