Nurses' Interaction with Nursing Managers and its Affecting Factors

Background & aim: The ability of treatment staff to interact with each other as a single group improves effectiveness, reduces error and dissatisfaction, and provides optimal care. Therefore, it seems necessary to pay more attention to issue of nurses' interaction with managers in therapeutic settings. The purpose of this study was to determine the interaction between nurses and managers and its influencing factors in Ardabil educational centers. Methods: This was a descriptive- correlational study with 407 participants of employed nurses in Ardabil's medical- educational centers. The sampling method was stratified random sampling method. Leiden & Maslin's Leader and Employees’ Interaction Questionnaire, and demographic characteristics were used for data collection. Data were analyzed by SPSS v. 22 using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, frequency) and inferential statistics (Chi-square test). Results: The results showed that most nurses had positive interaction with head nurses (82.1%), supervisors (59.2%) and nursing services managers (54.5%). There was a significant correlation between nurse-head nurse interaction and nurse- supervisor interaction with workplace hospital of nurses (p=0.024) (p=0.009). The results also showed that there was significant relationships between nurses-nursing services managers interaction with gender (p=0.02), workplace hospital (p=0.027) and work ward (p=0.048). Conclusion: The finding showed that nurses had good interaction with nursing managers especially with head nurses. Male nurses working in dialysis wards and Imam Reza Hospital had the highest percentage of interaction with nursing managers. Therefore, it is recommended to pay attention to gender boundaries and to provide a suitable work environment for nurses to interact with managers as much as possible.