Exploring communities of practice among medical-surgical nurses at King Khalid Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Background: Communities of practices (CoPs) are a process in which workers interact and acquire knowledge from each other at the workplace. This informal knowledge in the workplace can assist professionals to become active knowledge builders with sufficient autonomy regarding specific knowledge or skills required. In addition, this approach that supports informal learning facilitates learning among nurses in the workplace. A cross-sectional descriptive design study was conducted to discover facilitators and barriers that affect the implementation of a CoPs approach. The results show that CoPs seemingly provides a forum for sharing on the job, allowing for successful transition and retention. This and other findings can help in improving and facilitating this approach widely among nurses at the workplace. Purpose: This study explored CoP among medical and surgical nurses at King Khalid Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It also presents the facilitators and barriers in implementing the CoPs approach. Study Design: A cross-sectional descriptive design was used. Sixty-seven medical-surgical nurses were conveniently sampled at a military hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Data were collected using a structured, validated questionnaire. Methodology: Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis and were presented in frequencies, percentages, and P values. Results: A total of 62 nurses, mostly females, participated in this study. The mean age of respondents was 30.95 years, and N = 52 (83.9%) had a bachelor's degree in nursing, with N = 26 (41.9%) having between 5 and 10 years of experience in nursing. Most respondents (82.3%) had a clear understanding of what a CoP is. Most respondents N = 40 (64.5%) agreed that they wished to share their knowledge within the community. The top facilitators of a CoP as expressed by respondents were: to deliver solutions for daily problems N = 49 (79%) followed by N = 41 (66.1%) of respondents agreeing that CoP transfer best practices and results in the development of new knowledge N = 30 (48.4%). The most common barrier to a CoP identified within this study was lack of time as expressed by most participants N = 46 (74.2%), followed by a lack of confidence, N = 36 (58.1%) and a fear of not sharing correct information N = 31 (50%). Conclusion: This study described the facilitators and barriers of CoPs. Furthermore, the study highlighted the critique of CoP from the literature. Despite this critique, CoPs are found to provide a forum for sharing on the job, allowing for successful transition and retention.