Objective:

To determine the level of autonomy which pediatric nurses perceive within their professional practice.

Methods:

This is transversal, observational, and analytic study over a population of 31 pediatric nurses from a public hospital in Valdivia, Chile. A previously translated and trans-culturally validated by expert opinion questionnaire was used. The level of autonomy related to care assistance and operational activities was estimated through 5-point-Likert scales. Descriptive statistics which included frequency, central tendency, and dispersion measurements were carried out. Using the t student and the Fisher exact tests, the association between the level of autonomy and the demographical and working-related variables was analyzed.

Results:

Regarding assistance and care, the highest autonomy levels were found in ''teaching the patient self-care activities'', ''teaching the patients health promoting attitudes'' and ''falls prevention'', with 96.8% preference (mean = 4.96). Regarding operational activities the highest values were found in ''developing and reviewing procedures'', and ''developing and reviewing the nursing care norm'' (mean = 4.2). On the other hand, the lowest autonomy levels were found in ''planning the year expenditure'' and ''selecting new personnel'', with means of 2.5 and 2.6 respectively. The level of autonomy in operational activities was significantly associated with age, total working-seniority, and pediatric-related working-seniority.

Conclusions:

Variability in the level of autonomy was found among diverse role areas. It was acknowledged that the assistance tasks were carried out with greater independence, particularly in relation to education and promotion activities, while on the other hand the management functions were performed with less independence.