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Aim: This study aims to identify the characteristics of factors related to assertiveness of preceptors of novice nurses. Methods: An anonymous self-rating questionnaire survey was administered to 1292 preceptors working in participating city and university hospitals across Japan. The survey had question items from the Japanese version of the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (J-RAS, 30 items), and included demographic details, evaluation of the novice nurses, instruction framework, self-evaluation of the preceptors, workplace environment, and a burnout inventory (Japanese version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey, 22 items). Bivariate analyses were conducted using assertiveness as the objective variable, and other surveyed items as explanatory variables. Selecting variables with p values smaller than 0.2 obtained in the bivariate analysis as explanatory variables, a multiple linear regression analysis was performed. For the analyses, we used a statistics analysis software package, SPSS Statistic 22. Approval to conduct the study was obtained from the Ethics Committee of University A. Results: Excluding nurse administrators, responses from 836 participants 79.4%) were analyzed. Results of the multiple regression analysis showed that the factor most strongly related to the improvement of assertiveness of preceptors were ‘making rapid decisions’. The characteristics of the factor were having ‘longer clinical experience’, thinking that ‘novice nurses are mentally weak’, ‘with poor skills’, the preceptors ‘themselves to be as valuable as others’, and ‘having confidence in their nursing in the present workplace’, and with the ‘Total burnout score significantly low’. Discussion: The characteristics of preceptors who evaluated themselves to be able to ‘make rapid decisions’, which is most strongly related to the improvement in the assertiveness of the preceptors, include longer clinical experience, seeing novice nurses as they are, and the preceptors evaluating themselves positively. Previous studies have also reported that these are important factors for preceptors to interact with novice nurses in an assertive manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With the needs of patients and families who wish for quality, assuring, and safe medical care, and the diversity of medical tasks due to advances in and the complexity of medical care, medical practices has currently been changing from conventional models to team medical care in Japan. Because nurses are engaged in a wide range of tasks in medical settings, from medical checkup and treatment to the assistance of patients in the medical treatment they engage in, they are expected to collaborate with patients, physicians, and other medical staff as the “key person for team medical care” [1]. The roles that nurses are required to play in promoting team medical care are also extremely various, and it is important for team medical care to improve the awareness and skills of individual nurses to enable and effect collaboration. Previous studies reported that there are difficulties in collaboration between nurses and staff in other medical professions due to barriers including the differences in values specific to different medical professionals and the hierarchy comprising physicians [2, 3]. The authors previous study found that physicians give instructions only to nurses they trust and consider reliable, and do not share information with nurses they consider less reliable [4]. In this study, we define team collaboration as the cooperation between nurses and physicians in wards as the key persons, and aim to develop an original scale to evaluate ward team collaboration by examining the elements of the concept hypothesized as factors related to team collaboration by reviewing qualitative studies on team collaboration by the present authors and as reported in previous studies. Methods: We examined hypothesized elements of the concept from a previous study related to team collaboration reported by the authors [4] as well as from the clinical experience of the authors, and from existing scales and qualitative studies, created an item pool of 153 items, and developed an original scale to evaluate ward team collaboration by conducting brainstorming repeatedly with 20 to 25 nursing administration researchers. Finally, we created an original scale to evaluate ward team collaboration comprised of 29 items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to examine the reliability and validity of a scale to measure the experience of nursing students to form terminally ill patient-nurse relationships. Methods: Self-rating questionnaires were mailed to third year students enrolled in the three-year courses of 26 nursing vocational schools in the Kanto region of Japan. We developed a scale to measure the experience of nursing students to form terminally ill patient-nurse relationships based on interviews with students, and had a professional team examine the validity of the results. The responses were subjected to an item analysis of a draft scale with 38 items and an exploratory factor analysis using the maximum-likelihood method, and also a Promax Rotation. Results: As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, 13 items and 3 factors were extracted. The cumulative contribution rate of the 13 items was 58.46%, and the Cronbach's α coefficient was 0.9. We named Factor I , Factor II , and Factor III . Discussion: The reliability and validity of the scale were largely verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: We aimed to clarify the relationship between home environment and burnout in female nurses with preschool-age children who use day nursery in Japan. Methods: The subjects included 832 female nurses with preschool-age children who use day nursery agreed to cooperate with our study in Japan. In order to provide information, the nurses completed a survey evaluating home environment and burnout. Home environment was composed of four categories: human stimulation, social stimulation, avoidance of restriction and social support. Burnout was operationally defined as a total MBI score in the highest tertile. Results: We obtained valid responses from 528 nurses who had consented to join the study. Chi-square analysis indicated the significant differences in relationship between all categories of home environment and burnout. Conclusions: Female nurses with preschool-age children who use day nursery in Japan tend to have risk in home environment if they burned out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to identify levels of assertiveness among preceptors of novice nurses one year after the commencement of employment and determine factors related to their assertiveness. An anonymous self-rating questionnaire survey was administered to 1292 preceptors working in participating city and university hospitals across Japan. The survey had question items from the Japanese version of the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (J-RAS, 30 items) characteristics for the participants (demographic details), evaluation of the novice nurses, instruction framework, self-evaluation of the preceptors, working environment, and a burnout inventory (Japanese version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey, 22 items). Bivariate analyses (T-tests and oneway analysis of variance) were conducted using assertiveness as the objective variable, and other surveyed items as explanatory variables. Bivariate analyses (t-tests and one-way analysis of variance) were conducted using assertiveness as the objective variable, and other surveyed items as explanatory variables. Selecting variables with p values smaller than 0.2 obtained in the bivariate analysis as explanatory variables, and also a multiple linear regression analysis (Stepwise method). For the analyses, we used a statistics analysis software, SPSS Statistic 22. Excluding administrative nurses, responses from 885 participants (83.7%) were analyzed. Factors related to higher levels of the assertiveness of preceptors were 'Making rapid decisions', 'Having confidence in the nursing at the present workplace', and 'Having persons outside workplace to consult with', and a factor related to lower levels of the assertiveness was 'High total burnout score' (adjusted R2, 22.4%). Factors related to higher levels of the assertiveness of preceptors of novice nurses one year after the commencement of employment were having positive self-evaluations and having persons outside workplace to consult with. The factor related to lower assertiveness was a high total burnout score. It was found that a positive self-evaluation was associated with higher assertiveness and lower likelihood of burnout regardless of when the instruction of novice nurses takes place. It is necessary for supervisors to promote the assertiveness of preceptors by improving the working environment to ensure assertiveness and prevent burnout. Such conditions will make it possible for preceptors to build an assertive relationship with novice nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2012 a norovirus infection outbreak occurred in the Orthopedic Surgery Ward of Hospital A in Japan. This study aims to establish details of coping behaviors used by nurses and physicians of the facility, and examine the issues involved in infection control as well as the ways employed to deal with the infections. Participants in this study were twenty-two nurses and four physicians who were working in the facility at the time the infection outbreak occurred, and who were still working there when the interviews were conducted. Interviews were conducted from January to April 2015, and the data from the interviews were analyzed using the "Trend Search 2008" text mining software. As a result of the analysis it was found that the nurses primarily communicated information by passing messages to the nurses who took over the duty at shift changes, but did not pass on the information to other staff or to the ward as a whole. The nurses clearly remembered that the ward was closed and it was a difficult experience, but did not remember details of the patients they were in charge of. The physicians clearly remembered individual patients they were in charge of, but they were not aware of the situation and state throughout the ward. The findings suggest that this difference is due to the differences in the occupational nature and sense of values of the staff involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]