Registered Nurses' Perceptions of Being Present for Their Patients

Abstract

Evidence-Based Practice Session. The process of providing nursing care encompasses technical knowledge-based psychomotor skills as well as the interpersonal connection with patients. The Presence of Nursing Scale-RN version (PONS-RN) was developed to measure this phenomenon of both "doing for" and "being with" patients from the nurse's perspective.� Content validity was established by two experts in nursing presence. Content adequacy was determined by 21 registered nurses currently working in a direct caregiver role. This resulted in a 32- item instrument with items rated on a 5-point Likert scale. The PONS-RN was tested with 89 RNs working in a Veterans Affairs hospital and extended care facility. Psychometric assessment of the PONS-RN demonstrated evidence of reliability and validity. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a two-factor model: Factor One "Doing For"� (12 items) and Factor Two "Being With"� (6 items). These factors are congruent with Paterson and Zderad's Humanistic Nursing Theory (1976) which provided the framework for this study.�Reliability was demonstrated with Cronbach's alpha coefficients of .916 for Factor 1(Doing For) and .877 for Factor 2 (Being With). The PONS-RN demonstrated significant positive correlations with practice environment (r = 0.243, p=0.024) and job satisfaction (r = 0.260, p=0.016). Nurses with extraverted personality types scored significantly higher on the PONS-RN (t (81) = -3.061, p<0.01) than nurses with introverted personality types. These results provide initial evidence to support the use of the PONS-RN as a measure of nursing presence in overall evaluation of the quality of nursing care delivery. References: Paterson, J. G. & Zderad, L. T. (1976). Humanistic Nursing. New York: National League for Nursing.