Patient-Nurse Collaboration in Nursing Practice: A Korean Study

Kim, Dal Sook; Eun, Young; Kim, Hesook Suzie

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Consumerism is prevailing value in Korean society, while there has been little concern about it especially in Korean nursing society even though there has been an increasing emphasis on patients' participation in decisions concerning health care and nursing as an ideal in the literature.
OBJECTIVES
AND METHODS: The study with survey method was carried out to examine the nature of collaboration between patient and nurse in nursing practice in Korea through a replication of the studies carried out in US, Norway, Finland, an Japan (Kim et al., 1993) and to revise and test Kim's explanatory model of collaborative decision making in nursing practice from the Korean perspectives.
RESULTS
& CONCLUSIONS: Both patients and nurses as groups exhibited pro-consumerist attitudes regarding collaboration in health care, while there were significant differences in attitudes and perceptions of patients and nurses. These findings are similar to those of Kim et al.' s study carried out in US, Norway, Finland, and Japan. Nurses as a group compared to patients held stronger health-care consumerist attitudes and beliefs in general. However, the Korean nurses seem to hold a weaker attitude for challenging professional authority. And the Korean patients compared to the nurses seem to hold stronger belief in the patient's right to information, as found in US, Finland, and Japan. Regarding the nurse patient collaborative attitude in decision making, it revealed that one third or more of the patients as a group believe in the patients' right to be informed of decisions that nurses make for their patients, while another one third or more of them believe in the patients' right for advisory role and joint role in nursing care decision making. This result for the patients is very similar as those found in US, Norway, Finland, and Japan. However, the attitude for the nurses held stronger agreement with patients' to be informed of decision making that nurses make than the patients' right for advisory and joint role. The nurses have weaker belief in patients' self determination on their care than the patients. The results of path analyses confirmed the explanatory models that tested two explanatory models examining the factors contributing to the differences in the attitudes of patients and nurses. The path model for nurses identified nurses' lengths of experience as the important factor explaining attitudes regarding challenging professional authority and the patient's rights for information. The path model for patients identified the level of education as the most significant factor that explains patients' attitudes regarding the rejection of general authority, challenging professional authority, and the patient's right for participation in decision making.