Attitudes of Physician, Nurse and Patient towards Physician's and Nurse's Uniform

Jung, Youn Heui; Kim, Suk Bum; Kang, Pock Soo

Abstract

A survey was conducted to study attitudes of physician, nurse and patient towards physician's and nurse's uniform, from March 1 to March 31, 1996. The study population was 130 physicians and 147 nurses engaged in Yeungnam University Medical Center and 211 inpatients of Yeungnam University Medical Center. A questionnaire method was used to collect data. The following are summaries of findings: In the respect of physician's uniform, both physicians and nurses preferred other type of gown to the traditional coat-typed one and especially, nurses preferred more than physicians. Patients showed no difference in the preference of the traditional one and other form of gown as a whole but those who had higher educational level preferred other form of gown(p<0.01). It tended to agree wearing casual wear of physician during the working time of weekend and holiday as a whole. Younger physicians showed significantly higher preference for it(p<0.05). Regarding the nurse's uniform, both physicians and nurses preferred trousers, and 96% of the nurses did. Especially, nurses who were forty years old or more and who served at outpatient department and administrative and aid parts expressed 100 percent partiality to trousers. For the patients, those who had lower educational level preferred skirt and those who had higher educational level preferred trousers. As to the color of nurse's gown, 46.7% of the physicians and nurses liked white color. The physicians preferred white and nurses preferred other color(p<0.01). Of the patients, 79.1% liked white color. Regarding the wearing cap, 95.9% of the nurses replied it didn't have to wear the cap. The nurses who were fifty or more and who served at outpatient department and special parts gave whole answers of not having to wear the cap. On the other hand, 77.7% of the patients answered nurse had to wear the cap. From the above findings, it would be advisable to give a change to the forms and colors of the gowns to match with the trend and sense of the time instead of insisting on the traditional typical ones.