Nursing teams: behind the charts.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Organizational Psychology
• Nursing Science

Background:

• Existing research on healthcare workforce social networks primarily focuses on received support.
• A gap exists in understanding the 'back-up behavior' aspect of social support.
• Most studies rely on self-reported perceptions of support from the receiver's perspective.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the nature and characteristics of mutual support within a hospital's acute care nursing unit.
• To analyze both received and provided social support dynamics.
• To evaluate the role of social network analysis in understanding workplace support.

Main Methods:

• Employed social network analysis (SNA) on a nursing unit with 54 staff members.
• Administered a 12-item electronic survey to collect data.
• Utilized SPSS for descriptive statistics and ucinet, R, and Gephi for SNA.

Main Results:

• Nursing staff reported providing more mutual support to peers than they perceived receiving.
• Staff members who worked overtime were identified as greater providers of mutual support.
• A discrepancy was observed between the perceived provision and reception of help.

Conclusions:

• Mutual support is a critical element of teamwork, vital for quality and safety in hospital nursing.
• Social network analysis is a valuable tool for evaluating mutual support dynamics.
• Examining both provider and receiver networks provides a more comprehensive understanding of mutual support.