Carine Prinsloo
University of South Africa, South Africa
Title: Nurses experiences of their self-leadership in a critical care outreach service
Biography
Biography: Carine Prinsloo
Abstract
The increased acuity and complexity of patient needs within general wards create challenges for nursing staff. These challenges resulted in the development of Critical Care Outreach Service (CCOS). CCOS recognise early signs of deterioration in ward patients conditions. These approaches are based on the premise that early recognition of physiological abnormalities, coupled with the rapid intervention of proactive nurses, may result in an improvement in functional outcomes or mortality rate of patients. Nurses should take the lead in recognising the deterioration in patient and utilise behaviour and cognitive strategies in managing deteriorating patients. The ability to respond and initiate health interventions confirms the role of self-leadership in CCOS. In this study the nurses experiences on their self-leadership in CCOS were explored to obtain insight into their self-leadership in CCOS. It became evident that self-leadership aimed to develop personal effectiveness through the three categories of individual-level approaches; namely (i) behavioural focussed actions, (ii) natural reward (motivational) actions and (iii) constructive thought (cognitive) patterns (Van Wart, 2015:90). These approaches came to the fore in all the themes analysed from the data in this study. Insight into the nurses role as self-leaders led to the development of a conceptual framework on self-leadership and self-leadership strategies in a CCOS at a private hospital.