Abstract

As a result of the survey on performances in individual health service areas provided by 1,331 public health center nurses working for some Korean public health centers, we have got the following findings. 1. General characteristics of the subjects As for age groups, 45.3% of the nurses, the greatest proportion, belonged to the 30~39 group. As for educational levels, 72.5% graduated polytechnic schools, and 3% universities. The proportions of the subjects with respect to their job assignments turned out to be greater in the order of family plan offices (25.1%), mother-child health (MCH) centers (19.1%), and medical examination rooms (18.9%). As for their marriage statuses, 75.7% reported they were married. As for their durations of work for public health centers, those with 5 or less years of work experience accounted for the majority, 51.4%, and 21.7% appeared to have 10 or more years of experience. 65.4% of them had clinical experience, of whom in turn 39.1% had 5 or less years of experience, and 20.4% 5~9 years of experience. As for licenses owned by the public health center nurses, 37.5% had only the nurse license, 62.5% had got the license of health teacher or midwife in addition to their nurse license, and 6.1% turned out to have all the three types of licenses. 2. Performance levels in individual health service areas 1) As for the nurses' performance levels in health service areas provided by the nurses, the total average of their performances was 2.217. Their performance levels in the service planning and other administrative areas turned out to the highest, 2.767 and 2.543 respectively. The averages of the levels in the areas of other health services and practice education were 1.697 and 1.791 respectively. 2) As for their performance levels in detailed items of health service areas, the performance level of documentation and report (3.17) turned out to be high and that of grasping local societies' health requirements low (2.56) on the side of service planning. The performance level of detection and registration of gravidas (2.50) was the highest in prenatal care, that of documentation and report in delivery care (2.38), and that of health state measurement (2.42) in postnatal care. In most of these maternity areas, the performance levels of collective education and home visiting activities turned out to be the lowest. In infant/toddler care, the performance level of vaccination and health education 2.57) was the highest but that of home visiting and measurement of development turned out to be low. In family planning, the performance levels of individual family planning consult and education (2.72) and service receiver detection and registration (2.53) turned out to be high. In tuberculosis control, the performance level of patient detection and registration (2.05) was the highest while that of home visiting low, and in disease control, venereal patient consulting and education (2.34) turned out to be most actively performed. The performance levels of parasite control and hepatitis prevention instruction were high in other health services, and that of office cleaning high in other administrative jobs. 3) As a result of the survey on the nurses' performance levels in individual health service areas based on their working places, it turned out in terms of special jobs in individual offices that the performance level of tuberculosis control in tuberculosis offices was the highest (4.24), which was followed by that of family planning in family planning offices (3.72) and that of postnatal care in MCH centers (3.55). In the case of medical examination rooms and vaccination rooms, few performances were carried out except their relevant jobs, disease control (3.01) and family planning (2.33), while in maternity and infant/toddler rooms, the performance level of prenatal care (3.04) was the highest. It was vaccination rooms where service planning jobs were most frequently performed (3.78), and the performance level of delivery care was the highest in MCH centers due to the characteristics of the job. Based on the discussion so far, we make the following proposals for efficient performances of Korean public health center nurses and their performance improvement. 1) Given that health service nurses evaluated themselves as generally inactive in their jobs except those relevant to them, factors should be more practically clarified that constrict their job performances and make them passive. Also, overall conditions for activating home visiting and collective education and nurses' recognition of such activities should be enhanced as such activities most positively represent the characteristics of local society nurses' roles though their performance levels in these activities were particularly low among other activities in their relevant jobs. 2) Systematic changes should be worked on so that nurses can be adjusted to their extended role changes beyond their current mannerist, special job based nursing activities, and legal systems and re-educational courses should be provided so that they can positively carry out consequent job performances and provide improved nursing services.