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1. Introduction
Many researchers have conceptualized self-concept to mean how we see ourselves in our mind or how
we think and feel about ourselves (Cowin, 2000, Mlinar Turak & Karpjuk 2009) and believed that
self-concept to a large extent can influence our perception of our potential in our personal lives.
Therefore how we perceive ourselves could ultimately affect our view of ourselves in relation to work,
especially our ability to achieve within our working lives.
The understanding of Nurses self-concept is very important. Cowin (2002), found that low
self-concept among nurses may be implicated in high stress, increased burnout, attrition and low
professional status. And Nurses self-concept has also been demonstrated to mediate critical thinking
(Beeken, 1997), Job satisfaction and graduate retention among nurses (Cowin, 2002). Self-concept may
be implicated in many other important psychological constructs that are useful in understanding
nursing profession.
467
In Nigeria, as in many other West African countries despite the importance of understanding
self-concept, no meaningful study have attempted to assess nurses self-concept using a well
researched multi-dimensional nurses self-concept scale such as Cowins nurses self-concept
questionnaire even though nursing profession is a vital area of the countrys health sector. Currently
there is brain drain in nursing profession in Nigeria, as the very few trained nurses leave the country
for Europe and America for better employment opportunities. Self-concept is thought to influence
human behavior positively or negatively depending on its level in an individual and can be a potent
predictor of how well individual nurses perform or perceive his/her duty.
468
2. Method
2.1. Participants
One hundred and seventy nurses including final year student nurses (58.8% =100) and nurses who are
practicing (41.2% = 70) participated in the study. Appropriate consent was sought from the school
administrators and the hospital authorities and from all the volunteered participants. Two public
hospitals in Enugu State, Eastern Nigeria that run certified schools of general nursing and midwifery
were involved in the study. The language of study in the school is English language and one of the prerequisites for admission into the schools or any training as a nurse in Nigeria is at least six credits
including English language. Female participants were (80% = 136) while male participants were (20%
= 34). The average age of the student nurses was 26 years and that of the practicing nurses 37 years.
2.2. Instruments
The measure used for the study was Nurses self-concept questionnaire (NSCQ) by Cowin (2000,
2001& 2002). NSCQ measures self-concept of nurses from six multidirectional perspectives namely:
Nurses General Self-concept: Defined as an inclusive sense of self-esteem, which
encompasses a positive regard of the self with nursing.
Caring: Defined as the type of attention given to another that involves a sense of concerned
interest in their well-being.
Staff Relationship: This is a sense of belonging to a professional group, enjoying being a team
member and being encouraged and motivated by peers.
Communication: To confidently impart knowledge and information to other health caregivers
or consumers.
Knowledge: The confidence and ability to learn, embrace new nursing skills and theories with
patients, and others.
Leadership: Confidence and ability in leading others in the health team, especially other nurses.
The instrument contains 36 items, and six factors, each factor has six items. It is arranged in eight point
Likert format ranging from 1 = definitely false to 8 = definitely true. All items are positively worded
and each dimension contains a balance of affective (1 feel) and cognitive (1 think) declarative
statements. High scores are interpreted as high self-concept. Cowin (2000, 2001&2002) obtained the
following psychometric properties for the instrument; the Cronbach alpha for the different subscales
ranges from .93 for nurses general self-concept scale and leadership scale to .83 for knowledge scale.
469
3. Result
3.1. Internal Consistency
The cronbachs alpha(s) coefficient estimate for the instrument and subscales was acceptable and
reached the target reliability of at least .70 (Garson, 2005, Lewicki & Hill, 2006, Schmitt, 1996) see
table 3.1
Table 3.1: The coefficient cronbachs alpha(s) for NSCQ
FACTORS
NGSC
.75
CARE
.72
STAFF
.70
COMM
.75
KNOW
.70
LED
.74
471
Note:
NGSC
.39
.76
.76
.78
.39
.48
Items
CARE1
CARE20
CARE23
CARE29
CARE31
CARE34
CARE
.49
.33
.63
.58
.65
.68
Item
STAFF2
STAFF9
STAFF11
STAFF15
STAFF24
STAFF32
STAFF
.53
.34
.48
.71
.55
.60
Items
COMM7
COMM13
COMM21
COMM26
COMM30
COMM36
COMM
.48
.52
.49
.61
.72
.74
Items
KNOW4
KNOW10
KNOW14
KNOW19
KNOW25
KNOW35
KNOWL
Items
LED
.53
.51
.68
.38
.48
.66
LED5
LED8
LED17
LED22
LED28
LED33
.46
.53
.49
.72
.78
.64
NGSC= Nurses general self concept; comm = communication; know = knowledge; led = leadership.
Table 3.3: Sub-factor correlation of the six factors of nurses SelfConcept Questionnaire
NGSC
CARE
STAFF
COMM
KNOW
NGSC
1
CARE
.60
1
STAFF
.40
.43
1
COMM
.35
.46
.60
1
KNOW
.50
.53
.63
.58
1
LED
.33
.30
.35
.50
.40
Note: NGSC= Nurses general selfconcept; comm = communication; know = knowledge; led = leadership
LED
Relationship with other constructs: The results of the correlations of NSCQ with job
satisfaction measure MSQ by Weiss et al. (1967), showed the following, r = .37, p<.001, r = .32, p<
.001 and r = .33, p<.001 for intrinsic, extrinsic and general subscales of MSQ respectively. Also, the
correlation of NSCQ with MBI by Maslach and Jackson (1986) showed the following, r = -.34, p<.001
for correlation with MBI total score and r = -.33, r = -.24, r = -.30, p<.001 for NSGC correlations with
emotion, personal accomplishment and depersonalization subscales of MBI respectively.
4. Discussion
Nurses generally play a vital role in the health sector of every nation and the welfare of the individuals
involved in nursing job should be of optimum priority of every nation. Developed countries as it is
have through advanced researches devised many ways of maintaining the welfare of the personnel in
their nursing professions and researchers have agreed that the nurses self-concept play a pivotal role in
understanding of the personnel involved in nursing job (Beeken, 1997, Cowin, 2002). Developing
nations of which Nigeria is one seemed to be left behind in this advances because they just adopt or
utilized the results of the studies done in developed nation without assessing the validity of such
studies in their culture. One reason given for such direct adoption of foreign research studies into
practice in developing nations is that there are lack of instruments to conduct such study. Behavioral
sciences have developed various techniques of revalidating and assessing the utility of foreign
developed instrument in another culture so that such instrument can be used in the said culture. Nurses
self-concept questionnaire was developed by Leanne Cowin, who has used the instrument to conduct
many valid studies on the important of self-concept in understanding nurses (Cowin, 2000,2001,&
2002). The need to understand the important of self-concept among Nigerian nurses gave rise to this
study. It is thought that the results will be valuable to other sub-Saharan African nations that share the
same similarities with Nigeria.
As can be seen in table 3.1 the internal consistency analysis of the instrument utilizing
Cronbachs coefficient alpha reached acceptable alpha(s) which rejected the first hypothesis. This is
consistent to the finding of (Cowin 2000,2002) who reported that the questionnaire has an acceptable
Cronbachs alpha(s). The results of the CFA as assessed by the CFI/NNFI, RMSEA and chi-x2, reached
acceptable fits. Table 3.2 showed that the factor structure were will defined and table 3.3 showed that
the factors were clearly distinguishable from one another, this also rejected the second hypothesis and
472
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