Belgin Akin
Selcuk University, Turkey
Title: Nurse academics’ perception of, and opinion about nursing advocacy role: A qualitative descriptive research
Biography
Biography: Belgin Akin
Abstract
Despite advocacy is an accepted and integral attribute of nursing partice confusion remains about the precise nature and description of the concept. The aim of this descriptive qualitative study was to investigate nurse academics’ opinion and perceptions of nursing advocacy role. Study was conducted to answer the two research questions: How the academic nurses perceived the nursing advocacy role? and what are their opinions about bariers and its solutions for nursing advocacay? The study was carried out in 2015 in an university, Faculty, nursing department in Konya Turkey. The study group was nurse academics (n:5) who had five years teaching experiences. In order to academics’ opinion, three subjects were selected for focus group interview. One focus group interviews was carried out for investigating academics’ views on advocacy. Focus group interview was audiotaped and subsequently transcribed by two researcher. Data are coded systematically and organized into a number of categories. All the academics believed that nurses have not enough power to advocate theirself and advocacy could take place only if nurses have a power as a profession. They also thought that the personal characteristics of nursing students is important for being an advocate and the the cultural environment of the community is not supportive for advocacy, rather support the dutifulness behaviour. The participants stated that in current neo-liberal political health care enviroment make nursing advocacy more important since the community are more vulnerable in current health care system. As a conclusion, advocacy is perceived by academic nurses as a matter of power for nursing as a profession.