Team climate and attitudes toward information and communication technology among nurses on acute psychiatric wards

Abstract

Objectives: To describe the association of team climate with attitudes toward information and communication technology among nursing staff working on acute psychiatric wards.

Background: Implementation of ICT applications in nursing practice brings new operating models to work environments, which may affect experienced team climate on hospital wards.

Method: Descriptive survey was used as a study design. Team climate was measured by the Finnish modification of the Team Climate Inventory, and attitudes toward ICT by Burkes’ questionnaire. The nursing staff (N = 181, n = 146) on nine acute psychiatric wards participated in the study.

Results: It is not self-evident that experienced team climate associates with attitudes toward ICT, but there are some positive relationships between perceived team climate and ICT attitudes. The study showed that nurses’ motivation to use ICT had statistically significant connections with experienced team climate, participative safety (p = 0.021), support for innovation (p = 0.042) and task orientation (p = 0.042).

Conclusion: The results suggest that asserting team climate and supporting innovative operations may lead to more positive attitudes toward ICT. It is, in particular, possible to influence nurses’ motivation to use ICT. More attention should be paid to psychosocial factors such as group education and co-operation at work when ICT applications are implemented in nursing.

• Information and communication technology
• psychiatric nursing
• team climate

Acknowledgements

We thank all the participating nursing personnel in two psychiatric hospitals.

Declarations of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. Funding source: Academy of Finland (213440), Satakunta Hospital District (EVO 81051), The Finnish Cultural Foundation, The Finnish Association of Nursing Research, The Finnish Information Processing Association and The Finnish Concordia Fund.

AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS

M.V. and M.K. designed the study. M.K. performed the data collection, J.K. and M.K. did the data analyses, and all authors contributed to interpreting the data. M.K. wrote the first draft, which was critically revised by all authors. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.