Structure of Professional Identity of Public Health Nurses Working for Governmental Agencies

Abstract

Background: Public health nurses in Japan are nationally licensed professionals who act as members of local governments and provide services to local community residents. Public health nurses must establish their professional identity early on in order to deliver high quality public health services. However, the structure of their professional identity is not fully understood. Objectives: Our purpose was to investigate structures of professional identity of public health nurses working for governmental agencies, and to clarify characteristics of their professional identity. Methods: Questionnaire surveys were conducted on 670 PHNs working for local governmental agencies. The investigation items included measurement indices for professional identity of PHNs, basic attributes, and scales which reflect aspects of self-respect. After analyzing the investigated items, we conducted exploratory factor analysis. Also we named extracted factors, and investigated reliability and appropriateness. Relationships with the attributes or self-respect aspects were also analyzed. Results: Of 350 respondents (52.2%), 309 effective answers (effective answer ratio: 88.2%) were analyzed. Item and factor analyses identified 12 items, which were categorized into 3 factors: “intention to develop professionally”, “confidence in own abilities”, and “occupational affinity”. Scales of self-respect aspects and the index for professional identity showed positive correlation. The coefficient for all 12 items was 0.89. Significant difference with the attributes were noted for “age”, “years of experience as PHNs”, and “number of PHN in the workplace”. Conclusion: Professional identify of PHNs is found to be consisted of 3 factors.