Individual Innovative Features of the Intensive Care Nurses

It is crucial for nurses to identify deficiencies and areas for improvement within the health care system while performing care practices. In order for nurses to identify solutions to these issues through an innovative approach, it is essential that they develop their individual innovativeness characteristics. The willingness of nurses to innovate can be fostered by embracing innovation and adopting a positive perspective toward it. Individual innovativeness characteristics play a pivotal role in influencing the emergence of innovative behaviors among nurses.

This study was conducted to ascertain the individual innovativeness characteristics of nurses working in intensive care units.

The research was carried out using a descriptive design with 108 intensive care nurses who worked at the university hospital in the city center of Antalya. The research data were collected using the Nurse Promotion Form and Individual Innovation Scale. The data were evaluated using descriptive statistics such as average, SD, percentage, analysis of variance, t test in independent groups, Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskal-Wallis test.

Although the nurses' overall score average on the Individual Innovation Scale is 60.14 ± 5.62, it is seen that the individual innovation classification includes interrogators (15.7%), skeptics (55.6%), and traditionalists (28.7%). The group of pioneers and innovators did not include nurses, and most nurses (55.6%) were in the skeptics group. The point averages of the nurses received from the scale subdimensions were, respectively, the opinion leadership, 26.12 ± 4.26; resistance to change, 24.39 ± 3.53; and risk taking, 16.41 ± 2.00, and the scale totaled 60.14 ± 5.62. According to the scores of the nurses from the lower dimensions of the scale, the level of risk taking, opinion leadership, and resistance to change were above average.

Nurses are among the skeptical group regarding individual innovation, want to take risks, and respond positively to opinion leadership but resist change. According to the findings obtained from the study, nurses working in specialized units such as intensive care are open to developing innovative thinking and need to be supported in this regard.