Term of Award

Spring 1996

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nursing

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)

Committee Chair

June Alberto

Committee Member 1

Kathleen Koon

Committee Member 2

Anne Scott

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if the cultures of the two units who share nursing staff are more alike that the cultures of the two units who do not share nursing staff. Nurses on shared units seem to adapt well to "floating" between the units while nurses on unshared units do not seem to adapt as well. Is the reason because the nurses understand the two cultures or because the two cultures are alike? The theory of Culture Care Diversity and Universality developed by Madeleine Leininger is the theoretical framework for this study. The purpose of the Culture Care Diversity and Universality theory is to discover human care diversities (differences) and universalities (similarities) in order to generate new knowledge to guide nursing care practices. The research design is a nonexperimental exploratory survey. A total of 156 questionnaires were mailed to 115 nursing staff members who worked on four nursing units. Two of the nursing units shared staff members and those shared staff members received two questionnaires while those staff members who did not work on two units received only one questionnaire. Seventy questionnaires were returned, for a response rate of45%. Data were analyzed using descriptive and nonparametric statistics. Study results revealed that: (a) the units with shared nursing staff had more of the same "behaviors important to the group" than the units with unshared staff; (b) there was not more congruence in "behaviors the group wants to change" in the shared units than the unshared units; (c) there were fewer "areas of conflict" on the shared units than on the unshared units; and (d) there was no congruence in the "areas of conflict" on the shared units and there was some congruence on the unshared units.

OCLC Number

1030147025

Copyright

To obtain a full copy of this work, please visit the campus of Georgia Southern University or request a copy via your institution's Interlibrary Loan (ILL) department. Authors and copyright holders, learn how you can make your work openly accessible online.

Download

Files over 10MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "Save as..."

Share

COinS