Evaluation of a program to increase nurses’ motivation for psychiatric visiting care

In Japan, the number of visiting nursing cases where the community life of mentally disabled persons is supported (psychiatric visiting care) increased. However, many visiting nurses working in the stations have practical difficulties due to their lack of nursing experience in psychiatry, and it has also been reported that visiting nurses may lose confidence because their activities are invisible and less likely to be evaluated fairly and their nursing interventions bring only marginal changes to mentally disabled persons.

In that regard, Osaka Metropolitan University researchers developed and provided a training program to increase nurses’ motivation for psychiatric visiting care activities and evaluate its usefulness. The subjects of the study were 39 visiting nurses belonging to stations located in two prefectures. The program was executed as a short intensive seminar completed in 180 min in a day and consisted of two parts, a feedback seminar that conveyed the results of a fact-finding survey of mentally disabled persons as users of visiting nursing and an interactive workshop that provided an opportunity for participants to exchange information and talk about their ideals with each other. In addition to basic information, quantitative data on motivation collected before and after the program and qualitative data collected after the program were investigated. Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed by Wilcoxon’s signed-rank test and qualitative inductive analysis, respectively.

While there were no significant changes in scores on the scale measuring visiting nurses’ work motivation, the total score for the achievement motivation scale and the score for desire for personal achievement as a subscale improved significantly after the training workshop (p < .05). The qualitative data revealed that the participants figured out the user needs and the diversity of visiting nursing through the program, which allowed them to gain confidence and pride in their psychiatric visiting care activities.

This program has the potential to become a practical continuing education method to increase the motivation of nurses who engage in psychiatric visiting care.

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