This descriptive research was designed to determine nursing agency of registered nurse who work in eye department in provincial hospital division in Thailand. Simple random sampling was used, to select 140 nurses who work in eye department at least one year duration, including head nurses or clinical nurse specialists. Nursing agency was measured by the questionnaires developed by the investigator based on definition of nursing stated by Thai National League of Nursing, 1985. There were two forms of questionnaire

self-evaluation rating and head nurse evaluation of the registered nurse under their supervision. The questionnaires were mailed to the subjects and were returned to the investigator within a month. Results of the study indicated a significant positive relationship (r = .33,p<0.001) between self-evaluation and head nurse evaluation on nursing agency. However, there were not significantly difference on nursing agency for both self and head nurse evaluation according to training course, duration of working experience, and working unit. As to level of performance, it was found that nursing agency for this group of registered nurse were fair to good. Results of the study did not support the relstionships between selected conditioning factors mamely

course training, duration of working experience and working unit with nursing agency by Orem. However, vaious limitations pertaining to the measuremtn of nursing agency and the selection of the sample were discussed.