Factors affecting nurses’ duty to care during the COVID-19 pandemic

  1. Hyerine Shin
  2. Kyung hee Kim
  3. Ji-su Kim
  4. Yeun-hee Kwak

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Abstract

Background

Although the demand for nursing care in disaster situations has grown, there has been a lack of discussion on nurses’ duty to care in these situations.

Aim

This study aimed to examine South Korean nurses’ duty to care during the COVID-19 crisis and identify factors influencing the same.

Research design

This was a cross-sectional descriptive research study, using a structured online questionnaire.

Participants and research context

Korean registered nurses (n = 342) in a clinical setting were recruited. Participants responded to a demographic questionnaire and the Nash Duty to Care Scale. After excluding missing values, data from 320 nurses were analyzed.

Findings

Older age and working at a general hospital increased nurses’ duty to care. Being male, higher education level, and working at a general hospital increased perceived risk. Older age, more clinical career experience, a master’s degree or above, and working at a higher-level hospital increased nurses’ confidence in their employer. Older age and higher monthly wage increased perceived obligation. Older age, job position, 3–7 years of clinical experience, working at the internal medicine department, and working at the tertiary hospital were factors associated with increased professional preparedness. Age was a factor influencing all dimensions of duty to care, except perceived risk. Clinical career influenced both confidence in employer and professional preparedness.

Conclusion

Given the lack of research on nurses’ duty to care, this study expands the scope of nursing research. In the future, more active research on nurses’ duty to care should be conducted.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.21.21265272: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of [blinded for review] University (approval no.: 1041078-202103-HRBM-080-01).
    Consent: Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to the study.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    BlindingEthical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of [blinded for review] University (approval no.: 1041078-202103-HRBM-080-01).
    Power AnalysisUsing the G-power version 3.1.9.7 program, with significance level (α) .05, power (1-β) .95, and effect size (r) .

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Using the G-power version 3.1.9.7 program, with significance level (α) .05, power (1-β) .95, and effect size (r) .
    G-power
    suggested: None
    Data analysis: The collected data were analyzed using SPSS Statistics 25.0 program.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    This study has some limitations. First, since this study was conducted through an online survey, it is necessary to be careful about generalizing the findings as there may be a selection bias of users who use the Internet. Second, due to the lack of prior research, only sociodemographic characteristics were analyzed to explain nurses’ duty to care. However, this study is the first to quantitatively analyze Korean nurses’ duty to care, using the translated version of NDCS. Therefore, findings from this study may be used as basic data for related studies in the future. Moreover, this study included nurses practicing in the clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is meaningful in that it served as an opportunity to understand duty to care of nurses close to the clinical field.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.10.21.21265272v1 on medRxiv