Effects of Social and Economic Changes in the Nursing Practice

Domains of Nursing Practice:
Effects of Social and Economic Changes in the Nursing Practice
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September 19, 2017
Nursing is perhaps one of the most important professions anywhere and everywhere in the world. Its universal application for the delivery of care is simply too important that its realization and performance must always be done on optimal levels. However, just like any other profession in this world, times have always changed the demand and requirements in response to the ever changing reality. And since the job of nurses could mean life and death for their patients, this implies that there exists a need to observe and maintain the nurses’ well-being since even them are humans which have their own needs to take care of. Nonetheless, it is apparent that certain changes in social and economic factors could affect the performance of their tasks. Studies have said that when these changes are positive, the performance of quality care and communication between nurse staffs becomes more efficient. However, in the opposite case where social and economic changes are negative and which directly affects the nurses, studies have also shown that the delivery of healthcare is negatively affected through (1) decrease in monitoring efficiency, (2) increase in absenteeism, and (3) increase in staff turnover. In one of the studies done by Zube (2014), he studied nurses who are working in healthcare centers that deal with people with intellectual disability. Based on his research, he found out that the perception (and nurses) in their workloads have been directly affected when certain cutbacks and organizational limitations were placed. While cutbacks include the reduction in salary, removal of bonuses and benefits, and the increase of workload and overtimes, organizational limits include the reduction of roles in patient care. Although the study didn’t exactly state how this decrease in satisfaction could affect quality care, other resources would argue that there exists a relationship between work and satisfaction and performance in nurses. In another article written by Garavaglia (2008), he also emphasized that even the changes happening at the national level could potentially affect those in very particular situations such as nurses in a nursing home. Changes such as additional legislation, federal and state budget deficits, and logrolling could affect not only the individual healthcare providers but even the organizational dynamics.
As of now, a specific set of literature has been dedicated and emphasized on how do changes in the social and economic external forces could affect the provision of healthcare, with studies suggesting that there is a significant relationship between the quality of care provided and the impact of these changes on the nurses. Thus, what Garavaglia (2008) suggest was that hospital and clinic administrators should be more aware of these potential impacts to the nurses and the dynamics in between the groups, in order to mitigate any potential dangers to their performance. He then suggested that administrators should always observe the PEST (Political, Economic, Social, an...