Leadership Styles of Director of Nursing and Director of Social Services in Nursing Homes - Research Paper Example

? Leadership Styles of Director of Nursing and Director of Social Services in Nursing Homes Leadership Styles of Director of Nursing and Director of Social Services in Nursing Homes Leadership style of Director of Nursing and Director of Social Services in Nursing Homes affects the mental, psychological and physiological health of the nursing home residents. Understanding the best leadership skill, which can be used to have the best results, will, therefore, increase the quality of life for the Nursing Home Residents. Literature review Studies done in this area seem to indicate that, leadership styles in nursing homes affect the health of the nursing home. For instance, as Bern-Klug and Sabri (2012) found out, in nursing homes where the director of nursing and director of social services had best leadership skills, residents of these nursing homes were not only able to have better physiological health, but they were also able to have increased mental and psychological health. Bern-Klug’s et al, (2009) study, which was done in over forty nursing homes, also seems to support these findings. In their study, they were able to identify that, leadership styles affected the staff morale in nursing homes as well as the ease with which it was for necessities such as medicine and healthy food to be accessible to the residents. Havig (2011) found that, the leadership style of senior staff such as director of nursing and director of social services in nursing homes affected not only how safe the residents were, but also how the lower employees performed. In cases where a good leadership style is in use, the staff members were not only able to serve the residents better, but were also more enthusiastic about their jobs. In this regard, it is evident that, leadership styles are a major contribution to the quality of life not only to the residents, but also to the junior staff working in such facilities (Landry, 2011). In a study done by Castle and Decker (2011), leadership styles by the senior officers in nursing homes contributed to over sixty percent of the success or failure of such nursing homes. According to Vesterinen (2013), nursing across all boards is dancing a number of leadership challenges, which must be looked at in a critical way. Fleming (2007) also holds this view on the same subject and as he reports, leadership and experience are major determinants in the quality of services in the nursing homes. Leadership in the field of nursing and in nursing home in particular has to be studied in a better light in a bid to see how nursing can be improved and better services availed to those in need of them (Daly, Speedy & Jackson, 2004). Limitations of the studies One of the major limitations of the studies identified above was the fact that, they did not consider some of the factors, which may be important in determining the outcome of the studies. For instance, all of the studies mentioned above, they failed to consider some important factors and variables’ regarding socioeconomic factors affecting the way a nursing home was managed and how successful it was in terms of taking care of the residents. Social and economic factors can be very impactful with regard to how successful they are. While most of the studies looked at a number of nursing homes, they failed to investigate how economic factors such as the economic capabilities of the residents or their families affected the ways in which these nursing homes were effective in offering nursing as well as healthcare services to the individuals. At the same time, they failed to identify how other factors such as the location of the nursing homes affected the outcomes of the services offered in these nursing homes. In this regard, there is a need to consider these peripheral factors in order to guarantee that, the results of the study are clear and that and they are able to identify the actual issues. Importance of the study The number of nursing homes residents is increasing every day. The deteriorating economic conditions have meant that, fewer families are able to take care of their elderly, and nursing homes are becoming a choice for most elderly people who would otherwise be in the comfort of their homes and their families (Bern-Klug et al, 2009). At the same time, a number of other important factors have also led to the increase of the number of nursing homes and the number of residences in nursing homes. In this regard, the portion of the population living in nursing homes is increasing, and it is, therefore, necessary for this part of the population to be given the best healthcare and personal care they can get. This study intends to come up with necessary information, which will inform the involved stakeholders as a way to increase efficiency in nursing homes. The results will be of interest to directors of nursing and director of social services in nursing homes. The results will also be of importance to policy makers as a guide to formulate better policies with regard management of nursing homes. At the same time, the study will be important for trainers who train professionals intended for the nursing homes as a way to guarantee that, they have the right information when training these professionals. According to Fleming (2007) points out, as nursing homes become home for more citizens, there is an increasing need to understand the best way to manage them as well as the resources associated with the nursing home such as the human resource, medicine, healthy food etc. If there is no good understanding about how leadership styles affect the ways in which the senior officers use to manage these homes and their resources, there will be a cost incurred by the society. Purpose of the study To begin with, the research design of the study will use phenomenology as the axis of the study. Phenomenology has been used as the axis of the study because it is best suited for a nursing study. Phenomenology will be able to deal with the participants in the study in their whole person and look at how the individual’s experience has affected their lives (Balls, 2009). This will help in understanding how the leadership styles of these senior nursing home officials affects the efficiency of the nursing homes in terms of providing services to the residents. Research question How does the leadership style of director of nursing and director of social services in nursing homes affect the effectiveness of the nursing home? Sub questions How do these leadership styles affect the health and well being of the residents of nursing homes? How does the leadership affect the attitude and morale of nursing home employees? Do the leadership styles depend on the training that these leaders have? Nature of the study The study will be a qualitative study and, therefore, will seek to get qualitative information rather than quantitative data. The design of the study will be phenomenology. In this regard, extensive research will be carried out as a way to get qualitative research data. The study will also depend on interviews and observations as a way to collect data. Rationale for the design The importance of using qualitative research method is that, it is best suited for nursing research. According to Balls (2009), phenomenology is the best way for nursing research because it is able to collect phenomena about the issue being investigated. Using other research designs such as narrative or grounded theory would be unsuitable for this study because it would be hard to get the necessary information about the experiences of the various participants (Creswell, 2007).. Methodology The focus of the study will have three kinds of participants in order to identify the issues as described. The first kind of participants will be the directors of nursing and directors of social services in the nursing homes who will be interviewed and observed on order to determine their leadership skills. The second type of participants will be the nurses and other staff in these nursing homes in order to identify their experiences under the leadership being investigated. Finally, the third participants will be the residents of these nursing homes in order to identify their experiences under the leaderships being investigated. The research will be carried out in a number of nursing homes in order to get enough dependable data for analysis. In fact, given the nature of the issues being investigated, each nursing home, which will be involved in the study will also be regarded as an individual participant. This will be in addition to the individuals in these nursing homes being regarded as thus. The role of researcher in the study will be immense because the researchers will be needed to carry out extensive interviews and observations of the participants. This is because interviews and observations will be the central methods for data collection in the study. Sampling As Marshall (1996) says, sampling is one major and important part in any form of qualitative research. Given the nature of the study, the kind of sampling, which will be used will be random sampling. The study will seek to have a sample of about one thousand participants to represent the nursing home residents, twenty nursing home directors and about a hundred nursing home employees. Random sampling is a probabilistic method and using these samples will be enough o get the information needed for analysis. This will consider about twenty nursing homes and this will be good in order to compare the leadership’s effects in each of these twenty homes. The procedures for collecting data, as already explained, will be interviews and personal observations. The research will depend on the researchers interviewing the participants and also observing them while they continue with their daily schedules at the nursing homes. The analysis of the data will involve comparing the leadership styles of the director of nursing and director of social services in these nursing homes with other indicators such as life expectancies in the nursing homes, level of satisfactions in junior staffs, economic background of the residents as well as the training background of the director of nursing and director of social services in these nursing homes. Limitations and challenges of the study The study intends to use phenomenology as the core of the research design, which in turn means that, it will depend a lot on interviews and observations. This, as Nightengale (1976) raises a number of issues with regard to these methods of data collection. For instance, with regard to interviews, it will be harder to get genuine information from the participants (Crouch & McKenzie, 2006). This is because people usually feel that, they need to say what they need to say rather than saying exactly what they feel. This will be a big challenge because if the interviewees give the wrong information, the whole study will be void and the results cannot be credible (Maxwell, 2005). Another main challenge with this method of data collection is that, unless the right questions for interviewing are developed, it will also be harder to get the needed information. Another problem has to do with the other data collection method intended for this study. This other method is observation, which will need the researcher to observe the participators as they go about their business. The main challenge with this is that, it is unlikely to provide credible information due to the fact that people behave differently when they know they are being observed (Bake & Edwards, n.d.). As a result of these challenges, it will be necessary for the researcher to be able to know how to overcome these challenges and get credible information. These methods of collecting data as Miles and Huberman (1994) say also pose a challenge during data analysis and data interpretation. Data collected in this way does not seem to have any clear boundaries and in this case, the data can be misinterpreted thus giving the wrong conclusions even in cases where the data collected was right and credible (Sandelowski, 1995). . Overcoming the challenges The first step is by creating well designed questions for interviews. As Bake & Edwards (nd) argue, well designed and well thought interview questions are more likely to help in gathering the right information. In this regard, the study will focus a lot in designing well thought interview questions for each of the three types of participants in order to facilitate in getting the right information from the participants. To avoid the challenge of the percipients giving politically correct answers and failing to give credible answers, the following will be done. Make the interviewees comfortable It is necessary to make the participants comfortable and reduce the tension, which may otherwise build. The interviewees will be guaranteed that, the information they will give will be handled with confidentiality and that they will not be in any way victimised. They will be guaranteed that, the information being sought from them is only for research purposes. This will reduce their need to give the wrong information. Design intertwined questions for the interviews As Patton (2002) says, despite making the interviewees as comfortable as possible, there may be those who may still want to give the wring information during the interviews. In this regard, the interview questions must be designed in a way that, it is easy to detect any wrong answers. As Mason (2010) argues, to overcome this issue, some of the questions must be designed for control purposes. For instance, certain questions among the interview questions may be designed such that, if the answer for a certain question A is B, the answer for another question Y must be Z. This will help in detecting any deceptive answers and eliminate them from the data acquired for analysis. Ethical concerns The study will be seeking to get some sensitive information questions from individuals. This as Burgess (1989) says, can raise a number of ethical issues, which must be addressed. In this case, the participants being interviewed and or observed must be informed and only interviewed or observed with their informed consent. The participants will, therefore, be educated in the nature of information, which will be required from them, and only be involved in the study if they understand the privacy implications of the study on them. Significance of the study The study will provide information about how to better manage the many nursing homes and the resources in these nursing homes. This study could provide the needed information for better training and recruitment of directors of nursing and directors of social services in nursing homes. It could also provide information, which could change the way the nursing homes are managed and how the elderly are served in these nursing homes. Nursing homes top officers will find this study very useful because it will act as a way for them to peek inside themselves to understand how their leadership styles affect their work. Policy makers in this field will also find this study very useful as a way to ensure that, they are able to make policies, which will help in improving leadership in the nursing homes. In general, this study will be a big step in the field of nursing home and is likely to bring up important issues. References Bake S. & Edwards R. (n.d.). How many qualitative interviews is enough? National Centre for Research Methods. Retrieved on August 15th 2013 from: http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/2273/4/how_many_interviews.pdf Balls, P. (2009, August 13th). Phenomenology in nursing research: methodology, interviewing and transcribing. Retrieved August 15, 2013, from Nursing Times: http://www.nursingtimes.net/phenomenology-in-nursing-research-methodology-interviewing-and-transcribing/5005138.article Bern-Klug M, &. Sabri, B. (2012). Nursing home social services directors and elder abuse staff training. Journal of Gerontol Social Work, 55, 1: 5-20. Bern-Klug M, et al. (2009). Characteristics of nursing home social services directors: how common is a degree in social work? Journal of American Medical Directors Association, 10, 1: 36-44. Burgess, R. (1989). Field research: A sourcebook and manual. London: Routledge Castle, N.G & Decker, F.H. (2011). Top Management Leadership Style and Quality of Care in Nursing Homes. Oxford Journals, 51, 5: 630-642. Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Crouch, M. & McKenzie, H. (2006). The logic of small samples in interview-based qualitative research. Social Science Information, 45, 4:483-499. Daly, J. S. (2004). Nursing Leadership. Uppwer Saddle River, NJ: Elsevier Health Sciences. Fleming, M. (2007). Nursing Home Leadership: Experience and Perceptions of Directors of Nursing. Los Angeles, CA: ProQuest. Havig, A. et al. (2011). Leadership, staffing and quality of care in nursing homes. BMC Health Services Research, , 327, 11: 1-33. Landry, C. (2011). Clinical Nurse Leadership and Performance Improvement on Surgical Unit . Journal of Nursing management, 16: 1-5. Marshall, M. (1996). Sampling for qualitative research. Family Practice, 13, 6:522-525. Mason, M. (2010). Sample size and saturation in phd studies using qualitative interviews. Journal of Qualitative Social Research, 11, 3: 8-20. Maxwell, J. A. (2005). Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach (2nd ed., Vol. 41). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Miles, M. B., & Huberman, M. (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA.: SAGE Publication. Nightengale, C. (1976). Leadership Styles and Staff Satisfaction in Four Nursing Homes: Implications for Service Delivery. New York, NY: Management Literature Publishers. Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Sandelowski, M. (1995). Sample size in qualitative research. Res Nurs Health, 18, 2:179-83. Vesterinen, S. et al. (2013). Nurse Managers' Perceptions Related to Their Leadership Styles, Knowledge, and Skills in These Areas—A Viewpoint: Case of Health Centre Wards in Finland. ISRN Nursing Volume, 2: 1-8. Read More