Do Operating Room Nurses Participate in Scientific Programs? A Descriptive Study

Background: The main point in adapting to advances and changes in operating room nursing is to determine the specific education requirements of nurses and eliminate its deficiencies in the light of these requirements. Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the operating-room nurses' involvement in the participation in scientific programs. Methods: This is a descriptive study consisting of nurses employed in the operating rooms of three major hospitals in Istanbul; the sample included 93 operating room nurses who accepted to participate in the study and were not on leave or sick leave between June and December 2016. Written permits from the ethics committee and the institution were obtained prior to the start of the study. All data were gathered using "Data Collecting Form" developed by the researchers. The data were analyzed via the SPSS 18.0 through conducting the descriptive statistics, independent samples t test and Chi-square test were used for data analysis Results: Most of the nurses (64.5%) attended scientific meetings such as congresses and symposiums. Moreover, 96.8% of the sample reported that they wished to participate in programs concerning operating-room and surgical nursing on a regular basis but 44.6% were unable to do so due to financial issues. The nurses' decisions and abilities to participate in scientific programs differed significantly in terms of marital status and mean age (p0.05). Conclusions/Implications for Practice: Based on our results, we determined that most of the nurses included in the study attended in-service training programs, kept up with scientific advances concerning operating-room procedures and wished to attend other scientific programs regularly but were unable to do so due to financial issues.