Nurse level of education, quality of care and patient safety in the medical and surgical wards in Malaysian private hospitals: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Nursing knowledge and skills are required to sustain quality of care and patient safety. The numbers of nurses with Bachelor degrees in Malaysia are very limited. This study aims to predict the impact of nurse level of education on quality of care and patient safety in the medical and surgical wards in Malaysian private hospitals. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional survey by questionnaire was conducted. A total 652 nurses working in the medical and surgical wards in 12 private hospitals were participated in the study. Multistage stratified simple random sampling performed to invite nurses working in small size (less than 100 beds), medium size (100-199 beds) and large size (over than 200) hospitals to participate in the study. This allowed nurses from all shifts to participate in this study. RESULTS: Nurses with higher education were not significantly associated with both quality of care and patient safety. However, a total 355 (60.9%) of respondents participated in this study were working in teaching hospitals. Teaching hospitals offer training for all newly appointed staff. They also provide general orientation programs and training to outline the policies, procedures of the nurses’ roles and responsibilities. This made the variances between the Bachelor and Diploma nurses not significantly associated with the outcomes of care. CONCLUSIONS: Nursing educational level was not associated with the outcomes of care in Malaysian private hospitals. However, training programs and the general nursing orientation programs for nurses in Malaysia can help to upgrade the Diploma-level nurses. Training programs can increase their self confidence, knowledge, critical thinking ability and improve their interpersonal skills. So, it can be concluded that better education and training for a medical and surgical wards’ nurses is required for satisfying client expectations and sustaining the outcomes of patient care

Effect of leadership support, work conditions and job security on job satisfaction in a medical college

Background: Faculty members are crucial elements of an educational institution, and their job satisfaction is likely essential for success of the educational process. Leadership support, work conditions and perceived job security could be factors affecting academic job satisfaction. Objective: The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of leadership support, work conditions and perceived job security on the overall academic job satisfaction of faculty. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey, using a structured questionnaire, was conducted to determine the effect of leadership support, work conditions and perceived job security on academic job satisfaction among faculty and teaching staff at the College of Medicine, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia. Multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the significance of these relationships at 95% confidence interval and P < 0.05 level of significance. Results: Leadership support (β = 0.187, t = 2.714, P= 0.007), work conditions (β = 0.199, t = 2.628, P= 0.009) and perceived job security (β = 0.264, t = 3.369, P= 0.001) were found to be significantly associated with overall academic job satisfaction. Conclusion: The results of this study support the hypothesis that faculty and teaching staff working with supportive leaders and favorable work conditions as well as having an optimized sense of perceived job security demonstrate significantly higher levels of overall academic job satisfaction. These findings provide input for policymakers, and their implementation could enhance an institution's vitality and performance, and thus enable it to fulfill its goals