Perceived barriers and compliance with continuing professional development among staff nurses in selected public and private hospitals

Abstract

This descriptive relational research aimed to determine the perceived barrier, and compliance with continuing professional development (CPD) among staff nurses when they are taken as a whole and categorized according to age, sex, civil status, highest educational attainment, length of service, monthly salary, and type of hospital employed. An adapted data-gathering instrument was used for this research. The data-gathering instrument was submitted to a panel of jurors for face and content validation. After integrating the comments and suggestions of the jurors, the instrument was pilot-tested among the selected staff nurses of other hospital who were not the participants of this study. Frequency counts and percentages were used in the descriptive data analysis, while the Cramer’s V and Gamma values were used to determine the relationship between the variables. All statistical data processing and computations were done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Results of the study revealed that majority of the staff nurses appeared in this current investigation were males, single, age 26-30 years old, graduates of bachelor degree, earned income below P20,000, working in a public hospital and with 5 years and below length of service. Results revealed that 2 for every three staff nurses did not earn any CPD points and had attended 5 seminar and below. The staff nurses generally perceived that situational barriers such as health status of respondents family responsibilities as well as access to training area moderately hinder them from pursuing higher education to earn CPD points. Moreover the institutional barriers, such as lack of entry requirements, unavailability of courses they want, strict attendance requirements and anxiety for not being able to keep up academically, moderately hinder them from complying with CPD requirements, however having low aspirations, lack of self-confidence and being skeptical about the value of continuing education as elements of dispositional barriers was found to serve as the strongest hindrances to compliance among the staff nurses. A large majority of the respondents showed to have moderate compliance in the three categories of CPD, namely: professional track, academic track, and self-directed track. This means that about 9 for every 10 staff nurses have exhibited moderate compliance with the requirements of continuing professional development.