Head nurses' perceptions of their roles--Part I & Part II.

The head nurse is in a critical management position in a nursing department. It is the head nurse who sets the standards and directions for nursing practice on a nursing unit and manages the staff delivering the care. Due to the decentralization of managerial decisions in many nursing organizations and the change from functional to primary nursing in the care delivery systems, the head nurse role has changed considerably. The purpose of this exploratory, descriptive research study was to explore head nurses' own perception of their roles. The findings showed that head nurses are readily able to describe their work in the context of Mintzberg's ten managerial roles. Some of the roles are more familiar than others and receive more emphasis depending upon the situation. Three roles, the leader, resource allocator, and entrepreneur emerged as the most significant. Knowledge about the behaviours described by the subjects in this study may provide information to improve the educational preparation for the head nurse position. As well, increased understanding about the managerial roles should enable the head nurses to facilitate high quality patient care.