Role stress and strain among nondoctorally prepared undergraduate faculty in a school of nursing with a doctoral program

Role strain in collegiate athletic training approved clinical instructors

CONTEXT

Certified athletic trainers who serve as Approved Clinical Instructors (ACIs) in the collegiate setting are balancing various roles (eg, patient care and related administrative tasks, clinical education). Whether this balancing act is associated with role strain in athletic trainers has not been examined.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the degree of, and contributing factors (eg, socialization experiences, professional and employment demographics, job congruency) to, role strain in collegiate ACIs.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional survey design.

SETTING

Geographically stratified random sample of ACIs affiliated with accredited athletic training education programs at National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, II, and III institutions.

PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS

118 collegiate ACIs (47 head athletic trainers, 45 assistant athletic trainers, 26 graduate assistant athletic trainers).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S)

The Athletic Training ACI Role Strain Inventory, which measures total degree of role strain, 7 subscales of role strain, socialization experiences, professional and employment characteristics, and congruency in job responsibilities.

RESULTS

A total of 49% (n = 58) of the participants experienced a moderate to high degree of role strain. Role Overload was the highest contributing subscale to total role strain. No differences were noted between total role strain and role occupant groups, NCAA division, or sex. Graduate assistant athletic trainers experienced a greater degree of role incompetence than head athletic trainers did (P = .001). Division II ACIs reported a greater degree of inter-role conflict than those in Division I (P = .02). Female ACIs reported a greater degree of role incompetence than male ACIs (P = .01). Those ACIs who stated that the ACI training provided by their institution did not adequately prepare them for the role as an ACI experienced greater role strain (P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS

The ACIs in the collegiate setting are experiencing role strain in balancing their roles as health care providers, clinical educators, and administrators. Methods to reduce role strain need to be considered.

Clinical Educators' Empowerment, Job Tension, and Job Satisfaction

Recruitment and retention of qualified nursing staff are vital to safe patient care and require the expertise of clinical educators to facilitate the nurses' professional development. However, organizational redesign has challenged clinical educators with role ambiguity, job stress, and decreased job satisfaction. This study used Kanter's Structural Theory of Organizational Behavior to examine the relationships between clinical educators' perceptions of empowerment, job tension, and job satisfaction. High levels of workplace empowerment were significantly related to low levels of job tension. In addition, the combination of high levels of empowerment and low levels of job tension was predictive of high levels of job satisfaction. Implications for staff development administrators are discussed.

Work-Related Stress of Clinical Nursing Faculty

The purpose of this research was to examine work-related stress experienced by clinical faculty (N = 226) in ADN and BSN programs. Faculty rated the extent to which they experienced 23 potential stressors associated with clinical teaching. The predominant stressors were: coping with job expectations associated with their clinical teaching roles; feeling physically and emotionally drained at the end of a clinical teaching day; job demands that interfere with activities of personal importance; heavy workload; pressure to maintain clinical competence or a clinical practice without time to do so; feeling unable to satisfy the demands of work-related constituencies (e.g., students, clinical agency personnel, patients); and teaching inadequately prepared students.