Relationship between Participation in formal continuous Professional Development, Job satisfaction and attitude towards Patient Care among Nurses in Embu County

Abstract

In Kenya, nurses form a largest part of multi -disciplinary health care team. They are the backbones of healthcare and frontline service providers providing direct patient care in all health care facilities. Therefore, to offer safe, timely and quality health care, they must become life- long learners through participation in continuous professional development. Participation in CPD should not only improve knowledge, skills and performance of workers but also their productivity in terms of job satisfaction and attitude. The objective of this research was hence, to determine influence of participation in CPD on job satisfaction and attitude towards patient care among nurses in Embu County. Empirical literature was reviewed in regard to job satisfaction with its different attributes: pay, supervision, promotion, working condition and coworker relationship. Also examined was empirical literature on attitude. The target population was 532 nurses employed in public health facilities in Embu County. Stratified random sampling was utilized to acquire a sample of 385 nurses dispersed in four sub-counties. Self-administered questionnaire was utilized for collection of data. To analyze collected data, both inferential and descriptive statistics were utilized. The study findings were as follows: Multinomial logistic regression outcomes specified that formal CPD had positive effect on job satisfaction (β=.4863, t= 0.99, p= 0.323. LPM regression results indicated that individuals who had attended formal CPD training were found to have positive attitude compared to those who had not had the training (β=.0138508, t=0.17, p= 0.868). Chi-Square test for correlation between job satisfaction and attitude indicated that job satisfaction and attitude are interrelated (χ2=.7563, p=.944, Φ=.0665.T-test results for the difference in means of job satisfaction and formal CPD, indicated that there is analytically notable difference in means of the two samples (t=20.1141, p=.0000).T-test results for the difference in means between formal CPD and attitude designated that there is statistically insignificant variance in means of the two samples (t=-0.8829, p=.3786). T-test results for the difference in means of job satisfaction and attitude showed statistically crucial distinction in reference of the two specimens (t=1.9532, p=.0000). The study concluded that participation in continuous professional development influences the level of nurse’s job satisfaction. Nurses who had participated in continuous professional development had positive attitude than those who did not participate. Also, there is a noteworthy relation amid job satisfaction and attitude towards patient care among nurses in Embu County. The study therefore recommends that nurses and other healthcare professionals should be motivated to take part in formal CPD.