Nursing staff care from a supervisor’s perspective in the hospital setting

Abstract

Objective: To describe nursing staff care from the supervisor’s perspective in the hospital setting. Material and Methods: Exploratory study with a qualitative approach using the systematic design of the Grounded Theory. The population consisted of nursing supervisors in two secondary care public hospitals in the city of Chihuahua, Mexico; data collection was carried out during August and September 2017 through theoretical sampling, respecting ethical aspects of research. Results: With ten participants until reaching data saturation, female sex predominated (7), mostly married (6) and with postgraduate studies (6). Three categories emerged from this study: 1) Care from the nursing supervisor’s perspective; 2) Interaction between the nursing supervisor and their coworkers and 3) Professional development as part of the nursing supervisor care. Conclusions: Most supervisors conceptualize care as an activity aimed at others, but not at themselves. Effective communication and leadership style play an important role in the interaction between nurse supervisors with operational nursing staff and their managers, but these attributes are not properly perceived by themselves.