ABSTRACT

BONINA, ADA ESTEPAHNIA B., “DIFFICULTIES AND COPING MECHANISM OF FILIPINO NURSE EDUCATORS IN THE SULTANATE OF OMAN: IMPLICATIONS TO NURSING EDUCATIONS AND PRACTICE,” (Unpublished Dissertation, Aquinas University of Legazpi Professional Schools, Legazpi City, April 2007).

All professional are a never – ending struggle for economic, socio-psychological and personal gains. But the nursing profession takes the trophy in the strife since the time of Florence Nightingale.

For a time, the supply of nurses exceeded the demand, until exportation started in the late 1970’s. The economic pinch in the country forces Filipino professionals to seek work opportunities off the shores. But quality and not quantity is the rule of the employment game, shifting the pressure on training to shift the professionalization paradigm.

Nursing schools have sprouted exponentially; the student-centered and process-oriented training in other countries have slowly crept into the nurses’ training programs in the Philippines. But the 2006 PRC-board scandal made a punch in the image of Filipino nurses abroad, particularly in US. Thus a new type of skills and values development of exportable nurses must be had. The process must start with significant baseline data sourced from people “who face the fire;” people who struggle to deliver quality nursing care services and teaching in different cultural environment (transcultural nursing) as feedback to decision-makers in the country makers in the country. The implications of research results are important in designing new curricular programs that meet the demands of transcultural or competence-based nursing care. This is a gap in literature on Filipino nursing employment in Arab foreign countries that the present study fills.

The research is an eclectic triangulated case study of 20 expatriate Filipino nurses contracted as faculty members in 14 Institutes of Nursing in Oman. Their personal, professional and economic status, difficulties and problems of working in a different work environment and their coping strategies and implications comprise the subject of study. The triangulated data gathering technique included use of a researcher prepared and validated questionnaire-rating Scale of 45 items on coping focused on here problems: emotions, health and problem-related difficulties against two dimensions: inner (self) and outer (situations /actions) categorized as positive or negative in orientation, and interview of some expatriates identified by the snow-balling technique. Other documentary supplements included pictures and templates.

The salient findings included a profile of highly professionalized married, middle aged and highly experienced female nurses who accepted a two-year contract employment in Oman as nursing faculty in 14 Institutes of Nursing generally for economic reasons. They want good educations and better lifestyle for their children. Professionally, they have better chances of learning advanced theories and practice in nursing education and care resulting from professional interaction with expatriates from other countries and self-education.

Behind the façade of good life, the Filipino nurses experience personal (personal problems include: family alienation, estrange relations, broken families, worry about welfare of children, etc.) professional (strong competition, differences in work orientation and practice, threat of constant performance evaluation and relationships with peers, (petty jealousies, gender-taboo, and administrators ( work schedule and shifts, demands on reports and records, policies and standards) and students ( miscommunication in the English and local language, poor work habits and negativistic attitudes) and conflicts generally arise from difference’s in orientation on nursing practice and socio-cultural problems ( difficulty communicating the Arabic language,adjustment to the spicy food, religion and cultural taboo on gender relations). Summarily, the problems rank wise are personal, professional and socio-cultural.

In dealing with the health-focused difficulties, the nurses tended to use inner negative and outer-positive directed coping strategies. The inner-negative strategies include the bahala na attitudes, self-anger for being exploited by the family and hope for a better opportunity. The outer positive directed strategies are cathartic: crying, humor, engrossing in work, sports, travel, socialization, praying and charity work.

The outer-directed strategies in coping with professional health factors are: praying, complete surrender to Providence. Coping strategies with socio-cultural related problems were highly varied.

The outer positive directed coping mechanism. such as: sharing the problems, adapting to the socio-cultural demands of the host country ,professional demands of the job and intellectualizing the problems with more rationally were used in dealing with the personal and professional problem-focused difficulties. The coping strategies for dealing with socio-cultural problems were also highly varied.

The study concluded that overseas contract employment has benefits and cost. The economic gains support basic family needs, i.e. education of children, improved life style and other wants. There are psychological and emotional cost. The personal difficulties are inner emotional aches of missing the family and guilt feeling on inability to fulfill the duties of mother and wife. The professional orientations and practices, jealousies and the burden teaching students with communications difficulties, study habits and cultural orientations. The cultural problems include learning the Arabic language, adjustment to religious beliefs and practices, food and social relationships.

The difficulties to cope with are classified in terms of focus, polarity and direction of emotion, health and problem related. These mechanism tended to be the inner negative-directed (self) and positive outer (situation)-oriented type. The type and ranking of the problems and type of coping mechanisms strategies used are independent of age. No matter what the cost and odds are, the nurses are determined to continue working in Oman. Meaning that in a cost-benefit basis, the valence of economics outweighs the personal, emotional and psychological cost on a Filipino nurse expatriate. Theoretically, the implications of their experiences particularly on the development of coping skills can serve as feedback base-line information to enrich the nursing curriculum in the home country.

The recommendations of the study are generally conditional in nature. If the national economy prospers, local employment of nurses in public health service can be competitive, otherwise brain-drain is the cost. The aging world population creates a greater demand for nurses. So, if nurses are the Philippines’ major manpower export, the College of Nursing should produce quality graduates. The PBN, TPNE and CHED should develop a curricular program enriched with courses on transcultural nursing care and skills in coping. Standards should include ability and preparedness to cope with the professional and cultural demands of the host countries. Nurses should be certified with language proficiency in English and the local language of the country (Arabic in the Middle East, Spanish, Portuguese or French in Latin and African countries, German in Scandinavian countries, etc.) Orientation of departing nurses should include family members to prepare them for the cost of the mothers’ [S foreign employment. The Filipino expatriates should band together and be supportive rather than compete among themselves.

Areas for research are: replication studies on nurses working in schools of nursing in other Arab countries for comparative purposes; use of the other theoretical basis for coping with adjustment difficulties; a study verifying the lack of correlation between age and type of problems and coping mechanisms strategies; a study on the polarity of type/degree of adjustment difficulties of nurses and their continued desire to work overseas and a follow-up study on life style of the burned nurses.