The attitudes of psychiatric nursing staff toward staff development programs: A quasi-experimental analysis

This study investigated psychiatric nursing staff's attitudes toward in-service education; how these attitudes may change; and the factors promoting such changes. A sample of 55 psychiatric nursing staff at a major midwestern academic hospital were administered the Staff Development Evaluation Survey (DES) (Hagerty and Abraham, 1982-reliability: Cronbach's alpha ==.83, test-retest coefficient ==.81) before and after their participation in a comprehensive in-service educational program. Although attitudes were consistently favorable, this quasi-experimental, one-group, pretest-posttest study revealed a general trend of decreasing attitudes after program implementation. Yet this trend was found to be a function of the professional responsibilities, educational backgrounds, and work settings. Moreover, this trend could be explained as the result of a significant decrease on one dimension of the SDES: the administrative issues related to staff development. The implications for nursing administrators and educators are discussed.