Performance Evaluation of In-service and Permanent Nurses in Hospitals Affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences: A Comparative Study

It is widely accepted that nurses’ performance is one of the most important factors affecting patient safety. In this regard, various issues, such as work experience, affect nurses’ performance. Therefore, the present study aimed to comparatively evaluate the performance of in-service and permanent nurses working in hospitals of Iran University of Medical Sciences.

The present descriptive study was carried out on 225 in-service and 290 permanent nurses. The participants were selected by simple consensus sampling using the Cochran formula. Data were collected applying the Hersey and Goldsmith (1980) organizational performance questionnaire (with seven dimensions including ability, clarity, support, incentive, evaluation, credibility, and environment). Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 23 using descriptive and inferential statistics, t-test, as well as mean and standard deviation.

In this study, the mean level of scientific ability and mastery, understanding and awareness of work, cooperation, job motivation and desire, the level of job accountability and environmental factors affecting the activity among permanent nurses were lower, compared to in-service nurses. In addition, the mean observance of employment rights was lower in in-service nurses, compared to the other participants.

In this study, we evaluated the occupational performance of two groups of in-service and permanent nurses in seven dimensions. According to the results, there was a significant difference between the two groups regarding all mentioned dimensions, meaning that all variables of ability, understanding and awareness of work, cooperation, job motivation and desire, the level of job accountability and environmental factors affecting the activities of nurses were higher in the in-service group. Nevertheless, the dimension of observance of employment rights was higher in the permanent group, compared to the other group. It is recommended that special attention be paid to these seven dimensions by nursing managers to improve the quality of nurses’ performance.