Motivations, contradictions and ambiguities in the leadership of nurses in management positions in a university hospital.

Objective: To analyze the contradictions and ambiguities which permeate nurses' motivation for exercising leadership in management positions, in a university hospital.

Method: This study has a qualitative approach and is exploratory and descriptive, and used a total of 33 semi-structured interviews which were submitted to thematic analysis.

Results: The information converged on five categories: Motivation to take on a management position; The view of nursing managers on the exercising of leadership; The emblematic aspect of working with people; Leadership in nursing--mediatory and conciliatory; Time: a dilemma between managing and caring.

[Punitive written warnings issued by nursing services managers].

This survey aims at analyzing the reasons that generated punitive written warnings from a university hospital of Nursing Services in the period 2001 to 2006 involving different managers. This is an exploratory and descriptive study with quantitative approach. The data were categorized into 4 distinct groups, those being: errors of medicines, disciplinary problems, ethical and technical failures.

[Construction and implementation of two quality indicators in nursing services].

Indicators monitor the quality of services and improve the attention offered to the patients. Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, has been developing strategies to assess its services according to its institutional management policy of quality The present study aims to report the experience at this university hospital with the construction and implementation of quality indicators in its nursing services. In 2006, four indicators were established: incidence of pressure ulcer, with a goal of < or = 10:1000 patients per day/month and incidence of falls from bed whose goal was established as < or = 2:1000 patients per day/month.