Abstract
Background:
A small minority of nurses are investigated when they fail to meet the
required professional standards. Unprofessional conduct does not just affect
the nurse but also patients, colleagues and managers. However, it has not
been clearly defined.
Objective:
The objective was to identify unprofessional conduct by registered nurses by
examining disciplinary decisions by a national regulator.
Design:
A retrospective document analysis.
Data and research context:
Disciplinary decisions delivered to 204 registered nurses by the Finnish
national regulatory authority from 2007 to 2016. The data were analysed with
quantitative statistics.
Ethical consideration:
The study received permission from the Finnish National Supervisory Authority
for Welfare and Health and used confidential documents that were supplied on
the basis of complete anonymity and confidentiality.
Findings:
The mean age of the registered nurses who were disciplined was 44 years and
81% were female. Two-thirds had worked for their employer for 5 years or
less, 53% had two or more employers and 18% had a criminal history. All the
decisions included a primary reason for why the nurses were investigated,
but there were also 479 coexisting reasons. In most cases, unprofessional
conduct was connected to substance abuse (96%). In addition, stealing of
medicine, a decreased ability to work and neglect of nursing guidelines were
reported.
Discussion:
We found that the nurses were investigated for unprofessional conduct for
complex combinations of primary and coexisting reasons. Our study
highlighted that more attention needs to be paid to the key markers for
unprofessional conduct.
Conclusion:
Unprofessional conduct is a complex phenomenon that is connected to nurses’
individual and working backgrounds and has an impact on their work
performance. More research is needed to identify how nursing communities can
detect, manage and limit the serious effects and consequences of
unprofessional conduct.
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