Caroline Chitsulo, Mercy Pindani, Idesi Chilinda, Alfred Maluwa

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Kamuzu College of Nursing, University of Malawi, Lilongwe, Malawi.
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Abstract: Unit nurse managers in Malawi experience many challenges in the course of performing their roles. This affects their performance and service delivery including the quality of nursing care to patients. This study was conducted to determine the factors that hindered performance of unit managers in relation to expected quality of nursing services at two referral facilities (Kamuzu and Queen Elizabeth Central hospitals) in Malawi. These two central hospitals have the same structural settings and both offer specialized tertiary health services. A quantitative descriptive design was used to guide the planning and implementation of the study. Purposive sampling was used to select the two major hospitals in Malawi and all available 37 unit nurse managers during the time of the study at the two hospitals participated in the study. Data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires after seeking consent from the participants and were analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. The major roles identified by the unit managers were supervision (75.6%, n = 28) and coordination (70.3%, n = 26). Other roles such as team leader, liaison officer, research allocator, monitor and facilitator were rated by very few participants. Findings of the study showed that performance of unit nurse managers was affected by inadequate material (86.4%, n = 32) and human resources (94.5%, n = 35) and lack of managerial skills (5.4%, n = 2). In addition, the unit managers perceived their role to be stressful (38.9%, n = 14) and challenging (47.2%, n = 17). Therefore, there is a need to provide adequate material and human resources to the wards of the two central hospitals to enable the unit managers perform their duties efficiently.

Keywords: Unit Nurse Manager, Quality of Nursing Care, Managerial Skills, Level of Performance, Role of Nurse Managers, Effective Performance

Cite this paper: Chitsulo, C. , Pindani, M. , Chilinda, I. and Maluwa, A. (2014) Factors Promoting and Hindering Performance of Unit Nurse Managers at Kamuzu and Queen Elizabeth Central Hospitals in Malawi. Open Journal of Nursing, 4, 928-938. doi: 10.4236/ojn.2014.413099.

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