2. Methods
2.1. Participants
The convenience sample included volunteer nurse managers in a general hospital affiliated with Harbin Medical University. In October 2012, we sent questionnaires to every nurse manager (). Participants were told the aim of the study and that participation was voluntary, their anonymity would be protected, data would be handled with confidentiality, and they could withdraw from the study at any time. Names were replaced by code numbers upon return of the completed questionnaires to assure anonymity, and the completed questionnaires were examined by only the study investigators.
Sixty-eight valid questionnaires were returned (90.67%) and sixty-seven of the respondents were female. The demographic data of the participants was shown in Table 1. Over one-half of the participants (58.8%) were below 40 years old, and 35.3% held master’s degrees. Some respondents had worked at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University for more than 20 years (45.6%), and the same percentage had been in an executive position for less than five years. 55.9% respondents had not received education or training of informatics knowledge and skills.