The evolution of nursing in Australian general practice: a comparative analysis of workforce surveys ten years on

BMC Primary Care

Table 1 Socio-demographic characteristics of participants in two studies

Characteristic	Study 1 (2003/04) n = 284	Study 2 (2009/10) n = 235	p
Age (mean SD), years	45.83 (7.30)	47.52 (9.26)	0.022^a
Sex (Female)%	99.6	96.5	0.007^c
Hours per week as PN (mean SD) hours	26.22 (9.80)	26.84 (14.39)	0.89^b
Nursing Classification %
Non-nursing	2.1	2.1	0.02^c
Enrolled nurse	6.3	14
Registered nurse	85.6	77
Clinical nurse specialist/Clinical nurse consultant/Nurse manager	6.0	6.8
Nursing qualification %
Hospital trained	64.5	45.7	<0.001^c
Advanced certificate or tertiary education	35.5	54.3
Years of practice as a qualified nurse (mean SD)	20.58 (8.28)	21.58 (9.97)	0.219^a
Duration worked as PN (mean SD) years	7.51 (6.86)	6.40 (6.38)	0.068^b
Locality of practice %
Inner city/urban	38.1	44.2	0.096^c
Rural/Regional	40.6	33.8
Rural/Remote	19.8	22.1
Postcode by practice %
NSW	44.4	36.8	<0.001^c
Victoria	20.1	7.3
Queensland	17.2	15.9
South Australia	5.4	22.3
Western Australia	9.7	15.5
Tasmania	3.2	2.3
Own room/treatment area %	94.7	91.2	0.121^c
Current policy/procedure manual (Yes) %	73.0	77.6	0.241^c

Note: ^aIndependent samples t test/^bMann–Whitney U test (non-normal distribution of scores)/^c Pearson χ ² test.

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