Public emergency department: the psychosocial impact on the physical domain of quality of life of nursing professionals

Abstract

Objectives to determine the psychosocial factors of work related to harm caused in the physical domain of the quality of life of nursing professionals working in a public emergency department. Method cross-sectional, descriptive study addressing 189 nursing professionals. The Job Stress Scale and the short version of an instrument from the World Health Organization to assess quality of life were used to collect data. Robert Karasek's Demand-Control Model was the reference for the analysis of the psychosocial configuration. The risk for damage was computed with a confidence interval of 95%. Results In regard to the psychosocial environment, the largest proportion of workers reported low psychological demands (66.1%) and low social support (52.4%), while 60.9% of the professionals experienced work situations with a greater potential for harm: high demand job (22.8%) and passive work (38.1%). Conclusions low intellectual discernment, low social support and experiencing a high demand job or a passive job were the main risk factors for damage in the physical domain of quality of life.

Review article: Staff perception of the emergency department working environment: Integrative review of the literature

“…However, this was culturally specific. Studies conducted in Taiwan, China, Brazil and Iran included primarily female staff populations with limited qualifications.…”

“…Studies were included if they were published in English between 1993 and 2015 and focused on staff perception of working environment. Literature was excluded if it covered ED staff perception of violence against staff, assessment of compassion fatigue and burnout, communication difficulties in ED, shift work , internal cultural diversity and staff undergoing training processes (e.g. specific ED clinical training), as these have already been explored in highly focused reviews (see also Fig.…”

“…The health care environment can be a stressful place to work . This is an internationally recognised issue, with research being undertaken in Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australasia . EDs are often cited as particularly stressful environments, with increasing numbers and acuity of ED presentations resulting in high pressure and high volume workloads .…”

Pleasure-suffering indicators of nursing work in a hemodialysis nursing service

“…A study of nursing professionals in a public emergency unit identified the number of employment contracts as a risk factor for the impairment of satisfaction with sleep and rest of the participants (24) . This requires attention from workers and managers as this is one of the factors that can compromise the quality of nursing care.…”

“…On the other hand, for factors assessing suffering at work, such as Professional Exhaustion (items [18][19][20][21][22][23][24] and Lack of recognition (items 25-32), which are considered negative items, the analysis was performed at the following levels: above 4 = more negative and critical assessment; between 3.99 and 2.1 = moderate to critical evaluation; below 2.0 = less negative to satisfactory assessment.…”