| dc.description.abstract | The nursing profession has been concerned about nursing's public image since the very beginning of the profession. From a number of research studies it is evident that the public image of nursing is not congruent with the realities of contemporary nursing. Factors such as age, gender, education, and socioeconomic status have been correlated with the perceptions of nursing held by the lay public. The expectations of consumers regarding nursing functions and attributes have not -been extensively studied. Therefore, this study was designed to identify the expectations of health care consumers and determine if these expectations were congruent wit~ the expectations set forth by the profession through the ANA Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics. Consumer expectations were examined in relation to the variables of age, gender, socioeconomic status, and past hospital experiences with nursing care. As a convenience sample, 135 consumers, ranging in age from 18 to 62 years and above, chose to participate. These subjects completed an instrument developed by the investigator which was based on 'the ANA Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics. Descriptive statistics were employed for data analysis. Mean agreement scores for the five nursing function categories iii and the five nursing attribute categories were used in addressing the question of congruency between consumer and professional expectations. Chi-square analysis was used to compare consumer expectations with the variables of age, gender, socioeconomic status, and past hospital experiences. The results of this study suggest that consumers generally endorsed expectations of nursing functions and attributes congruent with the Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics. Less congruency was found between consumer and professional expectations of functions related to the category of nursing evaluation. Consumer responses to expectations for the nursing function categories did not bear a relationship to the individual variables. The variables of age and socioeconomic status were significantly related to consumer expectations in three of the attribute categories. | en_US |
