The impact of nursing education and job characteristics on nurse's perceptions of their family nursing practice skills.

BACKGROUND: Implementing family system nursing in clinical settings is on the rise. However, little is known about the impact of graduate school education as well as continuing education in family systems nursing (FSN) on nurses' perceptions of their family nursing practice. AIMS: To evaluate the level of nursing education, having taken a continuing hospital educational course in family system nursing (FN-ETI programme), and the impact of job characteristics on nurses' perceptions of their family nursing practice skills. DESIGN AND METHODS: Participants were 436 nurses with either a BSc degree or graduate degree in nursing. The Job Demand, Control and Support model guided the study (R. Karasek and T. Theorell, 1992, Healthy Work: Stress, Productivity, and the Reconstruction of Working Life, Basic Books, New York, NY). Scores for the characteristics of job demands and job control were created to categorise participants into four job types: high strain (high demand, low control), passive (low demand, low control), low strain (low demand, high control) and active (high demand, high control). RESULTS: Nurses with a graduate education who had taken the FN-ETI programme scored significantly higher on the Family Nursing Practice Scale than nurses with an undergraduate education. Nurses who were characterised as low strain or active scored significantly higher on the Family Nursing Practice Scale than the nurses who were characterised as high strain. Further, the interaction of education by job type was significant regarding family nursing practice skills. Hierarchical regression revealed 25% of the variance in family nursing practice skills was explained by job control, family policy on the unit, graduate education and employment on the following divisions: Maternal-Child, Emergency, Mental Health or Internal Medicine. CONCLUSION: Graduate education plus continuing education in FSN can offer nurses increased job opportunities more control over one's work as well as increased skills working with families in clinical settings.