Nurses are at the frontline of care provision for patients. Despite their unique roles in the health care setting, nurses are not involved in policy making processes. This non-involvement has led to a lack of growth in nursing profession, as the interests of nurses are not well represented at the federal level. The aim of the study was to examine nurses’ involvement in health policy making formulations in Nigeria A descriptive design was used for the study. A total of 280 nurses were employed for collection of the quantitative data, with the use of questionnaire, while Data collected were analysed and interpreted using SPSS presented in tables, frequencies and percentages. Result of the socio demographic characteristics shows that most of the Nurses in this study were above the mean age (58.6%), females (91.4%), Christians (82.1%) and married (88.9%). Findings also shows that most of the respondents are from Yoruba tribe (85.7%) and had diploma as their highest level of education (40.4%). The highest professional status of respondents was Chief Nursing officer (35%). Most of the respondents have been in their current position for approximately 1-5 years (80.4%) and their job description is caring for patients and supervisory (54.3%), majority of respondents belong to a professional body (99.3%) called NANNM (71.8%) and their responsibility in Nannm is just that of membership (88.9%) for about 26-30 years (17.1%). This study reveals that the level of respondents knowledge is high (67.7%) in all aspects of policies and policy formulation guidelines and are moderately involve in health policy (63%). This study also observe that the extent of Nurses involvement in Health Policy is poor (44%) and the barriers to nurses participation in health policy formulation include Most appointments into policy making positions are given to doctors (87.9%), Institutional structures and systems are such that exclude nurses from being part of the policy process (70.7%), Inadequate number of nursing representatives at decision making body and health policy development level (77.9%) and most policy making positions are given to male leaders thus female leaders cannot participate (gender imbalance) (57.5%) institutional structures and systems exclude nurses 70.7%, there is non-representativeness of nurses at decision making positions. They also suggested that nurses should be very much involved in policy formulation as that was the surest way the objectives of health care policies can be maximally achieved. In conclusion, most nurses know about policy formulation, but most of them are not involved in policy formulation processes. Some of the factors found to impede involvement in policy formation include non-representation at management levels, partiality in appointment of policy makers as well as institutional factors, which must be properly tackled to enable for growth in nursing profession.
- OLARERIN | J. | J. | jokoolarerin@gmail.com | 2348033852831, PHETLHU | D. | R. | renephetlhu@gmail.com | +27219593303, ALUKO | J. | O. | joelforfavour@hotmail.com | +2347015055376
- Nurses; Involvement; health care; health policy; formulation.
- EVALUATION OF THE INVOLVEMENT OF NURSES IN POLICIES
