Nutsuda Suginunkul.  1998.  Family, Work and Personal Factors Related to Performance of Professional 
Nurses. Dissertation, M.S. (Behavioral Science) Behavioral Science Research Institute. 


               The main objectives of this comparative-correlational study were twofolded. First, to investigate
whether the professinoal nurses who differed in family factors, working factors, psychological characteristics and
degree of religiousness, would perform differently on their work. Second, to identify the important predictors for
better work performance among various types of professional nurse. 
                The sample of  299  professional nurses were selected under four conditions. All of them were
Buddhists, worked in medical or surgical wards from ten public hospital in  Bangkok Metropolitan, carried on the
present duties at least six months, and were married and lived with their spouses at least six months. 
                Four groups of independent variables were assessed. The first group was family conditions,
consisted of four variables: marital adjustment, perceived household burden, perceived spouse acceptance of nursing
job and perceived social support from family members. the second group was working conditions which consisted
of  job  stress and 
perceived social support from health staffs. The third group contained four variables concerning psychological and
Buddhist characteristics : the belief in internal locus of control, the attitude toward nursing performance, the
Buddhist practices and the Buddhist way of life. Each of ten variables were assessed by the summated rating-scale
method. The last group was four biosocial and family background variables : age, the length of working time as
professional nurses, number and age of children and salary rates. These background datas were gathered by
fill-in-the-blank items. The dependent variable was the self-report on nursing performance measured by the method
of summated rating-scale. There were totally 16  variables. Most of these variables were interval variables, therefore
the Three-way Analysis of Variance, the Multiple Regression Analysis were employed on the data analysis. 
                There were three major findings as follows : 
                First, it was found that the nurses who had higher amount of five psychological and Buddhist
characteristics (the positive attitude toward nursing performance, the belief in internal locus of control, the marital
adjustment, the Buddhist practices and the  Buddhist way of life) performed better than their counterparts. These
findings were obvious in the total subjects and in some speccific types of subjects, namely the olders, the subjects
who worked for longer period of time and those with higher rate of salary. Furthermore, it was found that the nurses
who had higher amount of marital adjustment but lower amount of job stress, were the best job performers as
comparing with all counterparts. These finding showed significantly in the total sujects, the olders, the subjects  who
worked for longer time, and the subjects with lower rate of salary. Also there results revealed that the nurses who
possessed higher amount of psychological and Buddhist characterstics (the positive attiude toward nursing
performance, the belief in internal  locus of control and the Buddhist way of life) were the best group concerning
their nursing behaviors comparing with all counterparts. These findings were obvious in the subjects who worked for
longer time, the subjects whose the first-child were younger, and those with lower rate of payment. 
                    Second, it was apparently found that four family conditions, two working conditions, two psychological
and two Buddhist characteristics, ten variables altogether were significantly related to nursing performance (account
for  44% - 56%  of variation in nursing performance). The highest amount of prediction was in higher rate of salary
group. The important predictors were in the group of psychological and Buddhist characteristics, namely the attitude
toward nursing behavior, the belief in internal locus of control, Buddhist practices and way of life corresponding to
strength of predictive power. In addition the results revealed that four family conditions cound expained nursing
performance  scores as high as 15 % of variation in the group of higher rate of payment. The best predictor was
marital adjustment variable. Two working conditions could account for 13  %  of variation in nusing performance in
the group with longer working time. The amount of job stress was better predictor to job performance than the
amount of perceived social support from health staffs. It could be concluded that the higher the psychological and
two Buddhist characteristics the nurses possessed the better their job perfomance. 
               Finally, the results of Multiple Regression Analysis beyond the scope of hypotheses of this study suggested
that the better the family conditions (better marital adjustment, higher perception of social support from family
members and lower perception of household burden) and the better the working condition the nurses had (higher
perception of social support from health staffs) the higher the amount of their positive attitude toward nursing
performance but the lower the amount of their job stress. These two psychological states then strongly influenced on
their work behavior. In other words, whether family and working conditions would be more or less impact on
nurses'work behavior, depended on their amounts of positive attitude toward nursig performance and the degrees of
job stress. 
                    Based on results of the present study, three relevant recommendation were given. Firstly, in order to
promote job effectiveness among service nurses, the psychological training programs should be conducted to
heighten the positive attitude toward nursing performance and the belief in internal locus of control. Also, efforts
should be made to motivate the nurses to have more Buddhism participation. In nursing curriculum, the positive
attitude toward nursing performance, the belief in internal locus of control and practices in Buddhism should be the
perminant characteristics in socializing nurse students. Secondly, the better working conditions should be arranged
and effective training programs must be conveyed to reduced job stress. Finally, most married nurses had high
experiences in their profession. Therefore attention should be called to facilitate them with appropriate work
schedules which could go along well with their family scheduled as much as possible in order to maintain these
valued personnels in the work force. 

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