COMPETENCIES AND JOB SATISFACTION OF NURSE PRACTITIONERS WORKING IN PRIMARY HEALTH CARE UNITS

Abstract

The research is to study competencies and job satisfaction of nurse practitioners working in primary health care units. The samples are 104 nurse practitioners in Suphanburi. The instruments are consisted of personnel data questionnaire, Self-assessment competencies nurse practitioners form and job satisfaction questionnaire, analyzed by frequencies, percentages, averages and standard deviations. As a result, most of samples are women, average age is 40.65 years old (S.D.= 6.5), working years after bachelor graduation average is 10.99 years (S.D. = 6.5) and the experiences of working in primary health care units average is 1-5 years (39.5%). The level of competencies nurse practitioners working units average is good (67.31%). The highest average score competency is the primary medical care and immunization competency ( = 4.11, S.D. = 0.38) and followed by the competency of specific skills in clinical nursing in the patients with health problem, which in very good level ( = 4.06, S.D. = 0.43); and the lowest score is the ability of nursing quality improvement for specific diseases by using evidences ( = 3.77, S.D.= 0.48). The results showed that nurse practitioners’s job satisfaction level was slightly high ( = 3.81, S.D.= 0.48). The study results are the important data to develop competencies nurse practitioners working in primary health care units to use the evidences for working and improving the quality of management.