N U R SI N G A N D H E A L T H C A R E M A N A G E M E N T A N D P O L I C Y

Role discrepancy: is it a common problem among nurses?

Miyuki Takase BN MN PhD RN
Assistant Professor, School of Health Science, Tottori University, Tottori, Japan

Phillip Maude BScN MN PhD RN

Senior Lecturer, School of Nursing, The University of Melbourne, Carlton, Victoria, Australia

Elizabeth Manias BPharms MPharms MN PhD RN

Associate Professor, School of Nursing, The University of Melbourne, Carlton, Victoria, Australia

Accepted for publication 20 February 2006

Correspondence: TAKASE M., MAUDE P. & MANIAS E. (2006) Journal of Advanced Nursing
Miyuki Takase, 54(6), 751–759
School of Health Science, Role discrepancy: is it a common problem among nurses?
Tottori University,
Aim. This paper reports a study of nurses’ perceptions of the differences between
86 Nishi-Machi,
ideal and actual nursing roles, how these perceptions differ according to length of
Yonago-Shi,
Tottori 683-8503, experience and the factors that might contribute to these perceived differences.
Japan. Background. The literature suggests that nurses tend to experience role discrepancy
E-mail: m.takase@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au or a mismatch between their ideal and actual roles. Although it has been assumed
that experienced nurses perceive less role discrepancy than inexperienced nurses,
either because the former adjust themselves to their actual practice or because they
have the expertise to improve their practice, this assumption has not been tested.
Methods. A survey design was used and the data were collected in 2003. Selected
items from the Jefferson Survey of Attitudes Toward Physician–Nurse Inventory and
the Staff Nurse Role Conception Inventory were administered to 216 Registered
Nurses in Victoria, Australia to measure their perceptions of ideal and actual
nursing roles. Data were analysed using a t-test and regression analysis.
Results. Nurses with more clinical experience rated their ideal and actual nursing
roles more positively than those with less experience. However, the results showed
that both groups of nurses experienced the same degree of role discrepancy. Both
groups perceived strong role discrepancy in the areas of organizational decision-
making and provision of patient education. Experienced nurses also perceived
moderate role discrepancy in developing nursing care plans and in the freedom to
initiate referrals.
Conclusions. Role discrepancy cannot be resolved by having more clinical experi-
ence. While clinical experience enhances nurses’ conceptions of their ideal roles, it
can also lead to role discrepancy if there are organizational barriers that prevent
nurses from engaging in their ideal roles. It is important to find a way whereby
nurses can actualize their ideal views of practice in the current healthcare envi-
ronment.

Keywords: Jefferson Survey of Attitudes Toward Physician–Nurse Inventory,

nursing roles, reality shock, Registered Nurses, Staff Nurse Role Conception
Inventory, survey

2006 The Authors. Journal compilation
2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 751
M. Takase et al.
Introduction
Many nursing graduates face reality shock caused by differ-
ences between their expectations and the reality of their
clinical practice (Kramer 1974). One cause of reality shock is
role discrepancy, which refers to the incongruence between
their ideal roles and the roles they actually engage in at work.
Role discrepancy occurs because the roles that new graduates
were taught in schools to adopt as their professional
responsibilities, are often difficult to actualize in the work-
place – due to undue workloads, organizational policies
focusing on cost containment and conflict with other health-
care professionals at work. Role discrepancy is a serious
problem as it could contribute to nurses’ intentions to leave
their jobs (Takase et al. in press).
Unfortunately, the experience of role discrepancy is not
unique to newly graduated nurses. Literature suggests that it
is a common phenomenon experienced by nurses in general
(Bourgeois 1991, Blegen et al. 1993, Takase et al. 2005).
However, a question arises as to whether or not nurses with
more experience share the same degree of role discrepancy
with less experienced nurses. Investigating such a research
question enables nursing managers and organizations to
develop strategies to reduce the role discrepancy and to retain
both junior and experienced nurses.
Background
Few studies have investigated the discrepancy between ideal
and actual nursing roles perceived by nurses and how these
perceptions differ depending on the length of their clinical
experience. The effect of clinical experience on nurses’
perceptions of role discrepancy is unknown. Nevertheless, it
is plausible to assume that a long tenure could help to
mitigate such a burdensome experience. Organizational
literature suggests that individuals are negotiating agents
who strive to achieve adjustment to their work environment
during the course of their employment (Dawis & Lofquist
1984). The forms of negotiation used by individuals include:
adjusting themselves to the environment; changing the
environment in a way that corresponds to their occupational
needs; and leaving their work to look for a more suitable
environment (Dawis & Lofquist 1984, Walsh & Holland
1992, Dawis 2000). It is these negotiating nature and skills of
human beings that may differentiate the extent of role
discrepancy felt between experienced and less experienced
nurses. Despite a lack of empirical evidence as to the effect of
clinical experience on nurses’ perceptions of role discrepancy,
the nursing literature appears to support the assumption that
nurses with more experience could achieve a better congru-
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2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
ence in their roles than less experienced nurses. The literature
also suggests that this congruence could be achieved in the
following two ways.
The first way of achieving role congruence is to adjust an
individual’s role preferences to their existing or available
roles. In other words, this type of congruence could occur as a
result of nurses abandoning some of their role preferences in
accordance with the degree of their actual involvement. For
example, a lack of opportunities for nurses to participate in
clinical decision-making has been reported (Coombs & Ersser
2004), and this lack of opportunities may motivate nurses to
detract from the role of decision-making to achieve role
adjustment. Indeed, Joseph (1985) found that more experi-
enced nurses declined to engage in decision-making com-
pared with less experienced nurses because they learned that
challenging the decisions of physicians could lead to tensions.
Blegen et al. (1993) also reported that nurses with 1–5 years
experience desired independence in patient care and advo-
cacy, while nurses with more than 15 years of experience and
aged over 50 years preferred to leave to, or share, decisions
with others such as doctors.
The second way of nurses achieving adjustment is to
change their work environment in accordance with their
professional preferences. This type of adjustment is more
preferable compared with the previous way of nurses
withdrawing from their professional roles. Nurses’ capacity
to change their environment could be developed as a result of
long-term professional development. Nurses go through
various stages of professional development as a result of a
positive clinical experience and socialization with profes-
sional role models and colleagues (Fitzpatrick et al. 1996).
More experienced nurses, hence, may have more opportun-
ities to assimilate skills, knowledge and values necessary for
their work compared with less experienced nurses, which
could elevate their expectations toward their roles. Nurses
with a long tenure are also likely to have more power to
change their environment in accordance with their role
preferences due to a long-earned recognition for their work
and organizational and negotiating skills acquired. In fact, a
comparative, correlational study undertaken by Wynd (2003)
reported that experienced nurses tended to have more
autonomy in their practice and showed a stronger orientation
to their nursing service than less experienced nurses.
A review of literature indicates that experience can enable
nurses to learn how to adjust their environment (Joseph
1985, Blegen et al. 1993, Wynd 2003). However, a lack of
empirical evidence, coupled with the mixed implications as to
how such an adjustment can be achieved, could inhibit the
use of measures to facilitate the professional development of
both inexperienced and experienced nurses. Thus, it is
Nursing and healthcare management and policy
important to examine the degree of role discrepancy per-
ceived by nurses with different lengths of clinical experience
and to explore what factors may contribute to their percep-
tions of ideal–actual role discrepancy.
The study
Aims and hypotheses
The aims of the study were to answer the following research
questions:
• How do nurses with different lengths of clinical experience
perceive their ideal and actual nursing roles?
• How do nurses with different lengths of clinical experience
perceive the discrepancy between their ideal and actual
roles?
The hypotheses tested were:
• Nurses with less clinical experience perceive their ideal and
actual roles differently from those with more clinical
experience.
• Nurses with less clinical experience perceive the discrep-
ancy between their ideal and actual roles differently from
those with more clinical experience.
Design
A survey design was adopted and the data were collected in
2003.
Participants
This study is part of a larger project that investigated various
aspects of ideal–actual nursing practices and their impact on
nurses’ work behaviour. The original sample consisted of 346
Registered Nurses from two teaching hospitals and a univer-
sity in Victoria, Australia. Of this sample, 216 nurses were
included in the current study and classified into two groups.
One group consisted of those with £4 years of clinical
experience (n ¼ 108). The other group consisted of nurses
with ‡13 years of experience (n ¼ 108). These experience
categories were chosen because the findings by Blegen et al.
(1993) suggest that 10 years of clinical experience may allow
nurses to adjust to the environment by changing their
conceptions of ideal roles. These categories were also chosen
to retain appropriate sample sizes for statistical analysis.
Data collection
The questionnaire contained demographic questions and
measures of nurses’ perceptions of both their ideal and actual

2006 The Authors. Journal compilation
2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Problem of role discrepancy among nurses
nursing roles. The latter comprised 10 items, which were
categorized into two factors. The first factor consisted of
eight items measuring perceptions of the use of nursing skills
(e.g. participation in clinical and organizational decision-
making, providing patient education and providing emo-
tional support). The second factor consisted of two items
assessing delegation of basic nursing care to ancillary
personnel (i.e. assisting patients’ daily activities and hygiene
measures). These items were selected from the Jefferson
Survey of Attitudes Toward Physician–Nurse Inventory
(Hojat et al. 1999) and the Staff Nurse Role Conception
Inventory (Taunton & Otteman 1986). Minor rewording of
the original items was done in accordance with the purpose of
the study. These items were rated using a six-point Likert
scale, with a high score indicating strong desire to engage in
various nursing roles and a perception that these roles were
adopted in actual practice.
The questionnaires were distributed to the hospital and
university samples. For the hospital samples, the survey
packages were distributed by nurse unit managers at our
request. Completed questionnaires were returned by reply-
paid envelops. For the university sample, we distributed
questionnaires to students in classrooms. Some students
completed the questionnaires within the classrooms and
returned them directly to us. Others completed them at home
and returned them using reply-paid envelopes.
Validity and reliability
Three methods were used to establish the validity of the
instrument. First, a panel review was conducted by six nursing
experts, who evaluated the relevance of each question in the
instrument according to the study’s purposes. The Index of
Content Validity (Waltz et al. 1984) was used in this review to
calculate the level of agreement among the experts. Second, the
instrument was pilot-tested with 16 postregistration students.
Their feedback was used to refine the wording of the questions
and the design of the questionnaire. Finally, factor analysis
was conducted to establish the construct validity of the
instrument. The results of this are reported below.
Reliability was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha. We
identified a reliability of 0Æ62 for the instrument measuring
nurses’ perceptions of their overall ideal roles. A reliability of
0Æ77 was identified for the instrument measuring the overall
actual roles.
Ethical considerations
Approval was obtained from all participating institutions.
The questionnaires were accompanied by information sheets
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M. Takase et al.
explaining the study purposes and procedures. The anonym-
ity and voluntary nature of participation were also empha-
sized. Consent to participate was assumed by return of a
questionnaire.
Data analysis
Independent t-tests were used to compare perceptions of ideal
nursing roles between less and more experienced nurses and
to compare their perceptions of actual nursing roles. Next,
the differences between the ideal and actual nursing roles
perceived by these two groups were examined by a paired t-
test. Finally, a two-step hierarchical regression analysis was
conducted to examine if the degrees of role discrepancy
perceived by less and more experienced nurses differed. In the
first step of the regression analysis, the scores for nurses’
perceptions of their ideal roles were regressed on the scores
for actual nursing roles, demographic variables, group
membership and the interaction terms between demographic
variables and group membership. In the second step, the
interaction term for actual nursing role scores and group
membership was entered into regression analysis. The aim of
the first step was to control the main effects of demographic
variables, group membership and perceived actual roles on
nurses’ perception of their ideal roles. The aim of the second
step was to see if length of clinical experience moderated the
difference between ideal and actual nursing roles (see Cohen
et al. 2003).
Results
The response rate in the original study (n ¼ 346) was 36Æ7%.
Of the 216 nurses in the study, 92Æ6% were female. The mean
age of participants was 34Æ5 years (26Æ6 years for the less
experienced group and 43Æ3 years for the more experienced
group). The majority of participants (60Æ2%) worked more
than 35 hours per week and held clinical positions (90Æ7%).
Approximately, half had bachelor’s degrees, followed
by 25% having higher degrees and 20% having nursing
Table 1 Comparison of ideal and actual nursing roles between less and more experienced nurses
Ideal roles
Variables and factors £4 years ‡13 years
Overall 4Æ86 (0Æ53) 5Æ13 (0Æ54)
Factor I: the use of skills 4Æ99 (0Æ56) 5Æ24 (0Æ54)
Factor II: task delegation 4Æ32 (1Æ26) 4Æ73 (1Æ20)
Values are given as mean (SD ). As to the t-values at the factor level, significance was controlled by the sequential Bonferroni procedure.
*P < 0Æ05; **P < 0Æ01. n ¼ 216.
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2006 The Authors. Journal compilation
2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
diplomas. In addition, 41Æ2% of the participants were
studying at universities for bachelor’s degrees or postgraduate
qualifications. Up to 1994, nursing diplomas were offered
under the previous nursing educational scheme in Australia,
and required 3 years of hospital-based training leading to
registration. However, the diploma course no longer exists,
as the bachelor degree has become the minimum qualification
required for registration. As for areas of practice, participants
came from 16 clinical areas. Of 216 nurses, 23Æ6% were from
surgical wards and 22Æ2% from either intensive care units or
emergency departments. Nurses from each of the following
wards, medical, mental health, paediatric, palliative care and
cardiac wards, represented 6–8% of the sample respectively.
The remainder, such as those from orthopaedics, gerontol-
ogy, rehabilitation and oncology, comprised a small portion
of the study participants.
As shown in Table 1, nurses with ‡13 years of clinical
experience had statistically significantly more desire to use
their nursing skills and to engage in task delegation practice
than those with £4 years of experience. Table 1 also shows
that those with ‡13 years of clinical experience tended to
perceive themselves using more nursing skills and engaging
in task delegation to a greater extent than those with less
experience. In particular, experienced nurses had statisti-
cally significantly more opportunities to delegate basic
nursing care to others than their less experienced counter-
parts.
As for the discrepancy between ideal and actual nursing
roles, the results of a paired t-test suggest that both groups
rated their ideal roles in the use of nursing skills and
task delegation practice statistically significantly higher than
their actual roles. Both groups also perceived a greater role
discrepancy in the use of nursing skills (t ¼ 12Æ72, P < 0Æ01,
for nurses with £4 years of experience; t ¼ 11Æ66, P < 0Æ01
for nurses with ‡13 years of experience) than task delegation
(t ¼ 3Æ78, P < 0Æ01, for nurses with £4 years of experience;
t ¼ 3Æ54, P < 0Æ01 for nurses with ‡13 years of experience).
These results indicate that both groups experienced role
discrepancy.
Actual roles
t-value £4 years ‡13 years t-value
3Æ78** 3Æ96 (0Æ70) 4Æ23 (0Æ86) 2Æ45*
3Æ24** 4Æ02 (0Æ74) 4Æ22 (0Æ92) 1Æ81
2Æ46* 3Æ75 (1Æ57) 4Æ24 (1Æ51) 2Æ31*
Nursing and healthcare management and policy Problem of role discrepancy among nurses

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Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the role discrepancies perceived
by less and more experienced nurses respectively. The first
eight items from the left describe the use of nursing skills
and the next two items describe task delegation practices.
As shown in Figure 1, nurses with £4 years of experience
tended to perceive greater discrepancies in providing patient
education and decision-making on work and support
policies. In particular, a large gap was observed between
their desire to participate in decision-making on work
policy and their perception of the actual opportunity for
participation. As for the remainder of nursing roles, their
ideal and actual roles show more congruence, although the
scores for ideal roles were higher than those for actual
roles.
With reference to the discrepancy between ideal and actual
nursing roles perceived by more experienced nurses, Figure 2
shows that they also perceived ideal–actual role discrepancies
in providing patient education and organizational decision-
making, in particular in relation to decision-making to
support policy. Unlike those with £4 years of experience,
however, nurses with ‡13 years of clinical experience tended
to perceive more fluctuations in other areas of the relation-
ships between their ideal and actual roles. For instance,
while experienced nurses tended to perceive moderate

2006 The Authors. Journal compilation
2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 755
M. Takase et al.
correspondences in the provision of emotional support to
patients and task delegation practice, they experienced mild
role discrepancies in developing patient care plans and in the
freedom to initiate referrals.
Although there were some differences in perceptions of the
ideal–actual role discrepancy between less and more experi-
enced nurses, the results of the hierarchical regression
analysis suggest that these differences are not statistically
significant. The coefficients on the interaction terms between
actual role scores and group membership in the second step
of the analysis were nearly zero (i.e. 0Æ00 for the use of
nursing skills and 0Æ03 for task delegation practice, P > 0Æ05
for both coefficients). In other words, length of clinical
experience did not moderate the difference between perceived
ideal and actual nursing roles.
Discussion
A cautious interpretation of the findings is prudent. One of
the reasons for such caution is the limited generalizability of
the findings. Our participants were nurses employed in one
of two hospitals and students undertaking a postgraduate
course at a university. The university students were recruited
to enhance the representativeness of the sample, as these
students worked in a variety of clinical settings. However,
the fact that the university students comprised 36Æ1% of the
sample indicates that highly educated nurses may be over-
represented in the sample. This possible over-representation
could cause heterogeneity of the sample compared with the
entire Australian nursing population, thus reducing the
generalizability of the findings. Also contributing to a
limited generalizability of the study findings is the low
response rate. As already mentioned, these data are part of a
larger study investigating various aspects of ideal–actual
nursing practices and their impact on nurses’ work beha-
viour. To capture a range of factors in nursing practice, a
large number of questions were included in the question-
naire, and this may have discouraged many nurses from
participating. To give more accurate pictures of the role
discrepancy perceived by nurses and to develop sensitive
measures to reduce such an unpleasant work experience,
replication of the study with a more representative sample is
required.
Another weakness of the study arises from the relatively low
reliability of the instrument that measured nurses’ conception
of their ideal roles. Corwin’s Role Conception Scale is an
alternative instrument for measuring nurses’ perceptions of
their roles, but this also suffers from low reliability and
validity (Merritt 1997, Taylor et al. 2001). Therefore,
development of a more reliable instrument is necessary.
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2006 The Authors. Journal compilation
2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Despite these limitations, the present study gives insight
into how both less and more experienced nurses perceive role
discrepancy. Both had positive conceptions of their ideal roles
and the latter were rated higher than their perceptions of
actual roles.
Positive conceptions of ideal roles may be fostered through
the professionalization of nursing. In particular, the move of
nursing education into universities has played a major role in
Australia. It has been over 10 years since all nursing
education programmes were transferred to tertiary institu-
tions in Australia. The educational transfer means that all less
experienced nurses have been exposed to theoretical ideas
about nursing as a profession. Such theoretical components
include education for professional decision-making, leader-
ship, ethics and evidence-based practice. The transfer of
nursing education also established postregistration nursing
courses which allow former hospital-based diplomate nurses
to obtain a bachelor’s degree and pursue postgraduate
studies. These educational changes may have increased
nurses’ professional self-concepts and sense of responsibility.
However, moving nursing towards being an academic
profession has been said to have created a distance between
nursing education and clinical practice (Walsh & Jones
2005). As a result, nurses may experience disharmony
between roles they were inspired to assume during education
and those they perform in actual practice. Such disharmony is
influenced by organizational factors such as cost-containment
policies, heavy workloads and a hierarchical relationship
between doctors and nurses.
Nevertheless, fostering a positive conception of ideal roles
is crucial in nursing practice. A recent study suggests that
embracing ideal roles of their own contributes to better
nursing performance, as their idealism could serve as a guide
for their professional practice (Takase et al. in press). In this
regard, nursing education is considered essential to deliver a
high standard of care. On the other hand, it leaves tasks for
educational institutions to deal with role discrepancy. One
possible solution is to work collaboratively with healthcare
institutions to ensure that what is taught in universities is
congruent with what nurses do in actual practice. Another
possible solution is to equip students with skills to promote
their practice in a way that corresponds to their ideal roles.
As for the comparison between less experienced and
experienced nurses, our results show that experienced nurses
tend to have more positive conceptions of their ideal roles
than less experienced nurses. These results contradict the
findings of previous studies, which indicate a gradual decline
of experienced nurses’ intentions to engage in some of their
roles, such as decision-making (Joseph 1985, Blegen et al.
1993). On the other hand, our results support the positive
Nursing and healthcare management and policy
effect of professional socialization on the development of
nurses’ ideal role conceptions. Longer clinical experience
allows nurses to have more time and opportunities to engage
in professional socialization. Socializing with clinical role
models and assimilating their conceptions of professional
nursing roles is one form of professional socialization
(Fitzpatrick et al. 1996) and this could enhance nurses’ views
of their ideal roles. Another form of professional socialization
occurs through tertiary education, as has been discussed
above. In particular, approximately 40% of the experienced
nurses in this study had already completed postgraduate
courses. Thus, exposure to tertiary education may have also
contributed to experienced nurses’ embracing more positive
views of their ideal roles than their less experienced counter-
parts.
The results show that experienced nurses also perceive
themselves as engaging in more of their anticipated clinical
roles than less experienced nurses. This level of engagement
may be because experienced nurses have more clinical and
time-management skills for providing a range of nursing
services to patients as a result of a long-term professional
development than less experienced nurses. More experienced
nurses also tend to earn more recognition and seniority in
the workplace, which makes it easier for them to delegate
tasks to ancillary personnel than it is for less experienced
nurses.
Although experienced nurses tended to develop their
conceptions of ideal roles more positively and engage in
more of these roles than less experienced nurses, it is
surprising to note that both groups of nurses experienced
the same degree of role discrepancy. One of the reasons could
be the adaptability of new graduates. The literature suggests
that graduate nurses experience stages of adjustment to their
work during the first year of professional life (Kelly 1998,
Delaney 2003). A swift adjustment is necessary for graduate
nurses to reduce the experience of reality shock, which could
be a considerable burden to them. If this early adjustment
process were evident in first year nurses in our sample,
grouping nurses with £4 years of clinical experience and
comparing their perceptions of role discrepancy with their
experienced nurses would be inappropriate. The true effect of
reality shock that might have been experienced by newly
graduated nurses could be obscured in the process of data
aggregation involving nurses with 1–4 years of experience.
Thus, the adoption of a research design that is more sensitive
to the adaptive process of new graduates might have
identified differences in perceptions of role discrepancy
between less and more experienced nurses.
Another reason why both groups of nurses experienced the
same degree of role discrepancy might be that experienced

2006 The Authors. Journal compilation
2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Problem of role discrepancy among nurses
nurses also suffer from reality shock or its chronic form –
called the theory–practice gap. As has been mentioned, many
participants were educated at university and some were also
completing or had completed further education. While
experienced nurses continuously engage in professional
development and enhance their professionalism, they may
perceive that their actual practice does not correspond to
such developments. Perhaps a heavy workload and other
organizational factors (including cost-containment hospital
policies and a hierarchical relationship between doctors and
nurses) may be contributing to prevent experienced nurses
from achieving their ideal practice. In other words, experi-
enced nurses may be facing difficulties applying their
acquired knowledge and skills due to lack of organizational
support. An environment that does not reinforce nurses’
professional development could cause a serious problem by
inducing chronic experience of role discrepancy and might
lead to many leaving their jobs to look for more self-fulfilling
work (Takase et al. in press). Our findings suggest that
organizations and administrators need to understand nurses’
professional needs and be more responsive to their profes-
sional development.
When perceptions of the ideal–actual role discrepancy were
compared between more and less experienced nurses, there
were some similarities as well as differences. Both groups of
nurses reported that they experienced role discrepancy in the
areas of organizational decision-making and provision of
patient education. A study by Blegen et al. (1993) also
showed nurses’ experience of role discrepancy in unit policy
decision-making. Thus, a lack of participation in organiza-
tional decision-making, as opposed to what is desired, might
occur in the workplace and this problem should be resolved
by appropriate measures (see Drenkard 2001, Thyer 2003).
As for the provision of patient education, it is uncertain why
nurses perceived more discrepancy in this compared with
other clinical roles, such as providing emotional support. One
possible explanation could be that the heavy workload
commonly experienced by nurses (Hegney et al. 2003,
Khowaja et al. 2005) forces them to prioritize roles relating
to patient comfort and treatment and to downgrade patient
education.
Unlike less experienced nurses, those with ‡13 years of
experience reported moderate role discrepancy in developing
nursing care plans and in the freedom to initiate referrals. It
appears that experienced nurses seek more autonomy in their
clinical practice, which results in perceiving more role
discrepancy in these areas compared with less experienced
nurses. These results suggest that the areas of role discrep-
ancy perceived by nurses may differ as they go through the
various stages of professional development and additional
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M. Takase et al.
What is already known about this topic
• Many new nursing graduates face reality shock when
they begin clinical practice.
• Years of clinical experience allow nurses to adjust to
their actual roles.
What this paper adds
• Both experienced and less experienced nurses perceive
role discrepancy.
• There are similarities and differences in how lesser and
more experienced nurses perceive role discrepancy.
• It is important to acknowledge how nurses with differ-
ent clinical experience perceive their nursing roles so as
to retain both young and experienced nurses.
measures to reduce role discrepancy may be required for
more experienced nurses.
Conclusion
Role discrepancy may contribute to nurses’ intentions to leave
their jobs (Takase et al. in press). In Australia, as well as other
countries (including the United Kingdom and United States of
America), the shortage of nurses is an issue affecting a number
of healthcare organizations and communities (Buchan &
Calman 2004). Reducing role discrepancies perceived by both
less and more experienced nurses could mitigate the current
nursing shortage. In this regard, our findings provide vital
information about the nature of role discrepancy perceived by
nurses with different amounts of clinical experience and the
areas of role discrepancy to be resolved. They also highlight
issues that need to be addressed in future studies. One of these
is how quickly graduate nurses can adapt to actual clinical
practice to reduce the experience of reality shock and what
types of strategies they use. Another issue is the ways in which
educational institutions could effectively assist nurses to deal
with role discrepancy. The last, yet most fundamental, issue is
why role discrepancy occurs in nursing practice. Using a
quantitative approach, we have illustrated the degree and
areas of role discrepancy commonly experienced by nurses
working in a variety of healthcare settings. We have also given
some explanations for the causes of role discrepancy. How-
ever, such explanations need to be scrutinized using more
sensitive research approaches. Qualitative research designs,
incorporating emancipatory or critical modes of inquiry,
would facilitate this line of the investigation and compliment
the findings of the present study.
758
2006 The Authors. Journal compilation
2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the University of Melbourne for providing
a Melbourne Research Scholarship to support the conduct of
this study. The authors also thank the statistical consulting
centre at the University of Melbourne for their statistical
advice.
Author contributions
MT was responsible for the study conception and design and
drafting of the manuscript. MT and PM performed the data
collection and data analysis. MT provided statistical exper-
tise. EM made critical revisions to the paper. PM and EM
supervised the study.
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