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SAILING AGAINST THE WIND: A NARRATIVE RESEARCH ON EXPERIENCE OF A NURSE LEADER ON SPECIAL NATIONAL ASSIGNMENT IN NIGERIA

Nurses serve in various committees within and outside the hospital, to attend to health and societal needs. The story presented in this paper is that of a nurse-leader who served on a government multidisciplinary crisis intervention committee in a health facility in South East Nigeria. Since the completion of the assignment, there has been high demand for documentation of the
experience. The purpose of this paper therefore, was to share the experience with other nurse-Leaders to benefit from, and be equipped, to be able to manage their leadership challenges in similar circumstances. A textual narrative approach, with modest quantitative and qualitative data, was adopted for the paper. The
interaction between the nurse-leader and nurses in the facility was guided by Hildegard Peplau’s theory of interpersonal relationship. Findings from the qualitative data showed that most of the expectations of the nurses
were genuine; however, the quantitative assessment of
the performance of the committee revealed its failure to meet nine out of the fourteen expectations the nurses identified at the qualitative phase. The modest achievements recorded by the committee were attributed to the challenges the committee members had to grapple
with and their sacrifices. The implication of the findings for nurses’ increased awareness of their rights and privileges, for nursing administration, personal value development and clarification, nursing education, and result-oriented nursing research were highlighted.

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