title: Australian nurses' perception of the impact of their postgraduate studies on their patient care activities.
abstract: Postgraduate nursing education, formal or informal, has grown enormously and the benefits, to the students, their employers or their patients or its impact on clinical practice has not been well researched, particularly in Australia. The authors commenced a 10 year longitudinal study at a university in Sydney, Australia to track five cohorts of postgraduates at two yearly intervals to determine their career paths, changes in professional behaviour and the perceived impact of their postgraduate education on the care they deliver. This paper will report these five cohorts' (N=236) perceptions of the impact of their postgraduate studies on their care delivery two years after completion of their study. The results indicate that their postgraduate education had a positive to strongly positive impact on the majority of items. These as well as those items identified as not being affected will also be presented and discussed.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Health Services Management, Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Health, University of Technology, Sydney Kuring-gai Campus, PO Box 222, Lindfield, NSW 2070, Australia. Dianne.Pelletier@uts.edu.au
authors.forename: Dianne
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pelletier
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Donoghue
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Duffield
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001315:Australia; D004511:Education, Nursing, Graduate / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008491:Medical Informatics Applications; D009042:Motivation; D009718:Nurse Administrators / Q000193:education; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D011361:Professional Competence; D017748:Time Management