Abstract

INTRODUCTION-AIM: The concept of nursing care in learning disability community settings has not been investigated in Greece. The aim of this paper is to investigate how nurses working in learning disability community settings perceive the meaning of nursing care.

MATERIAL & METHODS: The sample consisted of 100 nurses and nursing assistants working in a social care hospice. Participants were asked to answer questions about socio- demographic characteristics of the sample and fill in a questionnaire of care (GR–NDI–24), the “Job-Communication-Satisfaction-Importance” (JCSI) questionnaire and the altruism scale of Ahmed and Jackson. The data analysis was realized with statistical methods of descriptive and inductive statistics. The analysis was made with the use of SPSS (version 19).

RESULTS: The majority of the sample was women (78%). The majority of participants were married (66 %), DE graduates (66%) without postgraduate studies (96.7%). The mean age of respondents was 36.98±6.70 years. On the scales of caring and altruism, the mean values were 40.89±15.87 and 28.12±4.16 respectively. Very or fully satisfied with his work was 72% of the sample. The scope of work emerges as the most important factor influencing job satisfaction. The wages and working conditions (73% and 40% respectively) are the parameters of work which gathers the most dissatisfaction, while the salary is emerging as the most important parameter, the improvement of which would provide the highest satisfaction. Marginally statistically significant difference was observed in the range between TE graduates (d=40) and those of the DE grade (d=37), p=0.053. No statistically significant differences were observed in relation to other working and demographic characteristics (p>0.05). Greater care importance was associated with greater job satisfaction (p<0.01), while the latter was associated with high levels of altruism (p<0.05).

CONCLUSION: The scope of work provides high satisfaction to nurses working in social care hospices, while the salary is not satisfactory. Nurses’ aides appeared highly sensitive to care issues. A multidimensional approach to the materiality of care and job satisfaction in future research will allow to further highlight all the aspects affecting job satisfaction and performance of nurses. This will identify critical parameters of nursing care in healthcare centers for the chronically ill.

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