Assessment of observing nursing job descriptions in Sabzevar City, Iran

Nursing occupation is an activity based on the moral and legal obligations. One of the important responsibilities of nurses is to gain knowledge and observe the laws and regulations related to their profession. The most important role of nurses is to restore health through care activities. Nurses can fulfill their tasks only when they have enough knowledge on their duties and responsibilities. One of the important tasks of nursing managers is to prepare nursing staff members and ensure the correctness of their performance for the assigned activities. Therefore, the present study was performed aiming to investigate barriers and provide solutions for performing nursing tasks. Methods & Materials: This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on 120 nurses, midwives, and nursing managers working in Vasei Hospital and Emdad Shahid Beheshti Hospital of Sabzevar City, Iran. The nurses were selected through stratified random sampling method. The study instruments included demographic information questionnaire and a researcher-made questionnaire on the organizational task description including 41 questions related to nursing and quality of life (QOL). Data were analyzed by SPSS software. The mean age and clinical experience of the study subjects were 29.11 ± 4.67 and 6.40 ± 11.30 years, respectively. Participants included 42 (35%) and 78 (65%) men and women, respectively. 62%, 33%, and 5% of the subjects were nurses, practical nurses, and managing nurses, respectively. The results showed that the inappropriateness of the number of nurses and patients and the use of newly recruited forces in the managerial dimension, shortage of in-service and retraining courses in hospitals in the educational dimension, inadequate welfare and recreational facilities and increasing wages in the motivational dimension, and the lack of necessary space and nurses' working hours in the environmental and professional dimension were the most important barriers. In order to solve problems, proposed solutions, criteria and scores, and ultimately, top solutions in each area are presented separately. In the managerial-executive field, disparity between nurses and patients has been reported as the main factor. In the professional environment, the high volume of nursing hours has been reported per week, and in the field of individuality and nursing, insufficient salary and wages of the subjects are barriers to performing nursing tasks.