Non-nursing tasks as experienced by nurses: a descriptive qualitative study.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Practice
• Healthcare Management
• Professional Identity

Background:

• Current definitions of non-nursing tasks inadequately capture the full scope of clinical nurses' work.
• Nurses lack a precise lexicon to describe their diverse professional activities.
• Understanding the essence of nursing work requires a deeper exploration of tasks beyond direct patient care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the phenomenon of non-nursing tasks from the perspective of clinical nurses.
• To explore the antecedents and consequences of these tasks as experienced in daily practice.
• To identify a more accurate concept for describing nurses' experiences beyond direct care.

Main Methods:

• A descriptive qualitative study was conducted between 2015 and 2016.
• Semi-structured interviews were performed with a purposeful sample of 22 nurses.
• Content analysis was applied to verbatim interview transcripts to identify key themes.

Main Results:

• The concept 'being out of the nursing role' accurately describes nurses' experiences, encompassing activities outside and within other healthcare professions' roles.
• These experiences include administrative duties and performing tasks requiring less, equal, or more education than nursing.
• Antecedents were identified at organizational, individual, and educational levels, with consequences impacting patients, professionals, and organizations.

Conclusions:

• Nurses engage in diverse roles beyond direct care due to moral obligations, organizational demands, and educational influences.
• Interventions are needed to support nurses' professional identity and foster interprofessional cooperation.
• Policy and professional strategies should address the integration of nursing roles within collaborative healthcare models.