Professional Paper APA FORMAT

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Running Head: NURSING PROFESSIONALISM

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NURSING PROFESSIONALISM

Nursing Professionalism

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Institution

Introduction

Generally, professionalism can be defined as the standard of behavior members of a certain profession are expected to display and this conduct is driven by the profession’s goals and qualities. Nurses and other health care providers portray professionalism by making sure they adhere to the set regulations, principles and standards of clinical practices in their attitudes, knowledge and behavior (Michiko et al., 2014, 579). Studies involving professionalism in the field of nursing have revealed that patients under the care of a nurse displaying professionalism have a higher chance of surviving than those under the care of a less professional nurse which serves as evidence for the importance of professionalism in nursing.

Professionalism and Education

Various surveys regarding nursing professionalism have been done and in a recent one, nurses in Japan scored a mean of 6.74 while those in Turkey had a much higher score of 16.7. The main variable in the set of nurses involved in the study was that only 43.5% of the Japanese nurses had a baccalaureate or a higher degree education level as compared to Turkey’s 79.5%. This validates previous findings that have concluded that professionalism in nursing or any other discipline increases with the level of education of the practitioner of the specific profession.

As mentioned above, professionalism is positively correlated with education level but the importance of this has been quantified by studies. It has been shown that increasing by 10% the number of nurses holding a bachelors degree or higher in a hospital causes a 5% decrease in the chance that an admitted patient will die within one month of admission (Michiko et al., 2014, 584). It also significantly decreases the likelihood of a patient dying due to sudden life threatening complications. High education levels combined with nursing experience are therefore vital in increasing professionalism.

Improving Professionalism

One of the ways to improve professionalism in the nursing practice is by improving working conditions. With Japan as an example, nurses work for long hours and have mandatory night shifts without receiving adequate compensation which has led to a high turnover rate. The low retention rate implies that nurses do not gain professionalism resulting from experience. Hence, it is imperative that health care institutions provide nurses with a work environment that is conducive for professional growth.

The importance of education for professionalism has been clearly established which makes improving the educational status of nurses an obvious solution for improving professionalism. Entry level requirements for the nursing profession should be more stringent and continuous training programs possibly led by nurses with long experience should be held in health care facilities. It should also be a requirement for nurses to engage in continuous educational studies because that leads to acquisition of new knowledge and skills which can only help to increase professionalism in nursing.

Conclusion

The most important factors affecting professionalism are level of education and experience and both of these can be addressed to the advantage of professionalism. Conscious steps must be taken to improve professionalism since the presence or absence of this virtue could be the deciding factor in whether a patient lives or dies.

Reference

Michiko, T., Yoshikazu, Y., & Rieko, K. (2014). Nursing professionalism: A national survey of

Professionalism among Japanese Nurses. International Journal of nursing practice, 20,

579-587.