Abstract:

Introduction: Nurses’ working in difficult conditions increases the possibility of making mistakes during their practices. Aim: To examine the relationship between intensive care nurses’ tendency to malpractice and self-handicapping. Method: The sample of the descriptive and cross-sectional study consisted of 289 nurses working in five public hospitals in two provinces of Turkey. The study was carried out between April and July 2018. Data were collected by the Personal Information Form, the Malpractice Trend Scale in Nursing, and the Self-Handicapping Scale. Results: A statistically significant difference was found between the nurses’ Malpractice Trend Scale scores in terms of gender, marital status, education status, and weekly working hours (p < 0.05). There was a very weak negative correlation between the total scores of the Malpractice Trend Scale in Nursing Scale and the Self-Handicapping Scale (r = -0.22; p < 0.05). There was a positive correlation between age (r = 0.15; p < 0.05), working time in the profession (r = 0,19; p < 0.05) and intensive care unit (r = 0.19; p < 0.05) with Malpractice Trend Scale in Nursing scores, and a very weak significant negative correlation between the duration of working in the profession, and Self-Handicapping Scale scores (r = -0.12; p < 0.05). Conclusion: Nurses who are male and single are less tendency to malpractice. As the nurses’ tendency to malpractice increases, their tendency to self-handicapping increases. Their tendency to malpractice decreases as nurses’ age, working time in the profession and intensive care units increase.

Keywords: