الفهرس 
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Abstract
Health care has been identified as number one public priority - and nurses play a central role in delivering health care. Nurses advocate for health promotion, educate patients and the public on the prevention of illness and injury, provide care and assist in cure, participate in rehabilitation, and provide support. The expectation and perception of patients towards nurses, especially to the male nurse, as the front line in the patient service is very important and would help male nurse becoming more caring in their therapeutic relationship with patients. Negative perception held by the patients has placed a barrier to the recruitment and retention of males in nursing, delayed the change of stereotyping view and also, affected the perception of patient to accept males as a nurse. In addition, male nurses recorded an increasing in their level of anxiety and tension on the work places and often they leave the profession because of negative attitudes from patients and stress from gender discrimination.
This study aimed to determine perception of the patients of care provided by male nurses in Alexandria Governorate.
Materials and methods:
Design: An exploratory descriptive design was used to carry out this study
Setting: The study was conducted in five governmental and non-governmental hospitals, where male nurses work, namely; Main University Hospital and EL -Hadara Orthopedic Hospital affiliated to Alexandria University, El-Mabara Hospital affiliated to Curative Health Organization, whereas Mabaret El-Asaphra and Alex New Medical Center (ANMC) affiliated to private sector at Alexandria governorate.
Subjects: The study subjects consisted of a representative sample of 300 patients, randomly selected from the previously mentioned settings both male and female gender, aged 20 years and above, conscious, oriented, and stable patients and cared for by a male nurses.
Tools of the study: In order to collect the necessary data one tool was used.
Patients’ Perception of care provided by Male Nurses structured interview schedule this tool was developed by the researcher after thorough reviewing of the related literature to explore patients’ perception of care provided by male nurses. It contained 2 parts:
Part 1: Socio-demographic characteristics of study subjects such as age, sex, marital status, level of education, occupation, residence, department of current hospitalization and length of contact with male nurses.
Part 2: It was developed by the researcher and used to explore patients’ perception of care provided by male nurses. It consisted of 39 items, entitled under 5 dimensions presented as follows: First, patients’ perceptions regarding preferences of receiving care from male nurses included 5 items. Second, patients’ perceptions regarding male nurses’ communication included 11 items. Third, patients’ perceptions regarding male nurse skills in assessing patients’ needs included 10 items. Fourth, patients’ perceptions regarding male nurses’ Skills and Competences included 6 items. Fifth, general impression about male nurses included 7 items. The items had to be rated on a four-point-Likert scale where (1) denoting ’’ strongly disagree’’ and (4) denoting ’’strongly agree’’. Scores of negative points were reversed. The total score ranged from 39 -156.
39-78 indicated negative perception.
79-156 indicated positive perception.
The main results obtained were as follows:
Equal distribution (50%) between type of hospital (governmental and non-governmental) and gender group is clarified, and nearly one - third of the patients (29.7 %) were in their early twenties and below 30 year. Regarding marital status, about more than half of the patients (53.3%) were married, while (9.7%) of them were divorced and around more than half of the patients (55.3%) were from urban areas. Regarding educational level about one - third of the patients (32.3%) had graduated on universities. On the other hand, about (16.3%) of them completed either primary or preparatory schools.
Concerning patients’ occupation, it was observed that about one quarter of the patients (26%, 24.7% and 25%) respectively, had governmental work, private work and housewife work, while 9.3% of them were retired. In relation to department, it was observed that about more than one - fifth of the patients (29.7%, 24.0%and 29.3%) respectively were in surgical, medical ward and coronary cardiac unit (CCU). On the other hand, about one - fifths (17%) of them were in orthopedic wards. According to duration of contact with male nurse about two fifth of them (42.3%) were between 1-5 days, while only 9.7% were between 11-15 days.
Concerning patients’ perceptions regarding care provided by male nurses more than half (62.3%) of the subjects had positive perception regarding male nurse care, while
(37.7 %) of their perception was negative. Moreover, there was significant difference between gender group and level of perception where (P= 0.000) and comparison showed positive correlation between gender group and perception. Also, there was statistically significant difference between age and level of perception where ( P= 0.011).
There is no significant difference between gender group and level of perception regarding marital status, area of residence, level of education, occupation, department and duration of contact.
In relation to the preferences of receiving care from male nurses it was noticed that that mean value of male group was (14.14 ± 2.67) while mean value of female group was (9.11 ± 3.15), a significant difference and positive correlation was found between the two groups where p<0.001. Concerning male nurse’s skills in assessing patients’ needs, it was observed that the mean value of male group was (29.31 ± 5.37) and female group was (27.25 ± 6.54) in which there was a significant difference between the two groups where p=0.003. In addition, there was a significant difference between the two groups where p=0.002 regarding general impression about male nurses.
There was a highly significant and strong correlation coefficients between patients’ perceptions regarding male nurses’ communication and patients’ male nurse’s skills in assessing patients’ needs where (p=0.000, r=0.791). Also, there were no statistically significant differences between governmental and non-governmental hospitals regarding patient’s perception toward care provided by male nurses.
Based on the findings of the present study, the following recommendations are suggested:
o Faculty of nursing should adopt graduate male nurses psychologically and educationally after graduation in form of participations in scientific meetings, conferences, graduation magazine and social media support groups.
o Patient’s approval should be obtained during sensitive procedures such as abdominal and perineal examination about preferred nurses’ gender.
o Develop and implement in-service training programs in governmental and nongovernmental hospitals in Egypt regarding nonverbal communication clues that convey sense of caring.
o Nursing education programs should provide support to assist male nurses in the developing effective strategies to provide health education counseling.
o Encouragement of male nurses about how to manage time and resources effectively.
Recommendations for further studies:
o A study to explore the barriers facing male nurses in health care agencies.
o A study to assess physicians’ opinions towards male nurses.
o A study to explore the factors affecting male and female’s self- confidence.