Affiliations 

  • 1 Institute for Health Management
  • 2 Institute for Health Systems Research
MyJurnal

Abstract

Caring practice is one of the three core values of Corporate Culture of Ministry of Health Malaysia, initiated in 1991. A cross sectional study was conducted to determine the extent of hospital healthcare personnel practicing the element of caring. Self-administered questionnaires were mailed to all staff working in public hospitals followed by reminder letters and telephone calls. A total of 37,267 responded out of 69,385 personnel working in the hospitals with a response rate of 53.7%. Results showed that about half of the respondents perceived that they practice caring value of the corporate culture (49.5%) and only 33.3% perceived that their colleagues practiced it. The practice of caring value was highest among clinical specialists (65.4%) and lowest among the clerks (22.1%). Nurses perceived that 40.4% of their colleagues practiced caring values while the clerks perceived only 17.0% of their colleagues practice it. In conclusion, caring value is not being well practiced by healthcare staff especially among the support staff. There is a need for further research to study the reasons for poor caring practice by healthcare personnel and develop strategies to improve the situation.