THE EFFECT OF DOCTOR-NURSE RELATIONSHIP ON PATIENT CARE (CASE STUDY OF FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTRE OWERRI, IMO STATE)

ABSTRACT

This study seeks to examine the effect of doctor-nurse relationship on patient care in Federal Medical Centre Owerri, Imo State. The null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. They are: Medical teamwork; hospital administrative structure; and doctor-nurse value orientation. In order to generate data for testing these hypotheses, a 42 item questionnaire was developed by the researcher and validated by the supervisor. Survey research design was adopted while data collected from 200 randomly selected respondents (male & female). Purposive, stratified and simple random sampling procedures were variously applied at appropriate stages of the study. The generated data was statistically tested using chi-square analysis procedure. The analysis revealed that: there is a significant relationship between medical team work and patient care, hospital administrative structure, doctor-nurse value orientation and patient care. It was however recommended that collaborative work relationship between doctors and nurses should be encouraged for effective health care delivery system.