Perceived Self-Efficacy of Care Process Management among Pediatric Nurses: A Qualitative Study

Introduction: Self-efficacy as the main predictor of nurses’ behavior plays an important role in caring and nurses’ professional behavior. However, various aspects of this concept have not been considered. This study tried to explore perceived self-efficacy of care process management in pediatric nurses. Method: This study was part of a larger study on the caring self-efficacy concept that was conducted through content analysis and from a qualitative approach during 2014-2015 in Iran. 27 pediatric nurses and clinical instructors participated in this research according to the purposive sampling employed in the study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed using conventional content analysis method. Results: The “Management of care process” theme was one of the main themes extracted from the interview analysis. The theme was of two main categories “Provide process-oriented care” including caring according to nursing process and caring decision making, and “Guidance and control of the caring process” including supervision and leadership of care and self-control. Conclusion: Nurses with self-efficacy perception can manage care to children. Perceived self-efficacy of care process management takes place through infrastructures such as caring according to nursing process, caring decision making, and supervision and leadership of care and self-control appear. These results can be used by nursing managers and instructors to help development of self-efficacy perception in nurses, especially in pediatric care. Keywords: Caring process management, Self-efficacy, Pediatric nursing and qualitative researc