A Comparison of productivity between younger and older nurses in Malaysia

Abstract

Malaysia was facing the nursing shortage problem and yet the government continued with the early ret.irement, policy roused the interest to select this topic for research study. This study was designed to investigate if age contingency of the professional nurse affects level of performance. One hundred and thirty-four registered nurses from two private hospitals were selected in two age categories. The younger age group were nurses from age 25 to 49 while the older ones were from age 50 to 65. A Quality of Performance Model was constructed to use as a framework guiding this study. The study used three methods to measure performance: (1) a Semantic Differential Scale to survey the professional perceptions by supervisors of nurses under their direction; (2) six vignettes to measure the effectiveness and quality in decision making; and (3) observation on the performance of a nursing procedure by simulation, rated on critical criteria. Eight nuIl hypotheses posed were tested using chisquare and z-test of proportions. The results from the three methods indicate that there is no significant difference in performance between nurses in the younger and older age group, except on the work overload situation, the younger nurses made a significantly higher quality than did the older nurses in making quality decisions. On the whole, although there is a tendency to rate nurses in the younger age group higher than the older ones. This tendency was not significant at the < .05 Ievel. A document survey was also done on the origin of the early retirement policy in Malaysia. No specific rationale was found for this policy. Factors which influenced the early retirement might be the shorter life expectancy and high unemployment rate at the time Lhis policy was made. Based on the findings it is recommended that the nursing service administration should consider retaining and hiring healthy nurses, aged 50 and over and match the jobs to their functional profiles.