Quality of work life and factors associated with it among nurses in public hospitals, Iran

Abstract

Background: There is an acute shortage of nurses worldwide including Iran. Quality of work life is important for nurses as it affects the safety and quality of care provided for patients as well as organizational factors. The aim of this study was to describe the status of quality of work life and to explore its predictors among nurses in Iran. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 2391 nurses in 85 Iranian public hospitals, selected through the convenience sampling. Data were collected using demographic information and the quality of work life questionnaires. Results: The mean score for total quality of work life was 2.58, indicating a low level of self-reported quality of work life, with 69.3% of nurses dissatisfied with their work life. The major influencing factors were inadequate and unfair payment, lack of solving staff problems by organization and poor management support, job insecurity, high job stress, unfair promotion policies, and inadequate involvement in the decision-making. Significant predictors in the multivariate analysis for lower quality of work life were male gender, being single, older age, having lower educational levels, and working in teaching hospitals. Conclusion: The quality of nursing work life was at a low level and needs improvement interventions. The predictors identified allow for more targeted interventions. Nursing managers and policymakers should develop and implement successful strategies appropriately to improve the quality of work life. This includes the payments, organizational and managerial support, job security, fair promotion policies, and measures to reduce job stress.

Relationship between Perceived Organizational Support and Quality of Nurses’ Work Life at King Fahad Hospital-Saudi Arabia

“…This finding is in line with studies conducted in Jorden, South Ethiopia, and Turkey [16, 20,22]. However, in other studies, older nurses have a substantially higher average quality of work life ratings than younger nurses [24]. Regarding gender, [8,24] reported male nurses had a lower average of QNWL levels than female participants, which was…”

“…It is in line with other study findings [16,22] Concerning marital status, there was no correlation between QNWL and marital status in the current study result, and this similarity to the study conducted by [16,22,23]. This result was inconsistent with the research reported that single nurses had significantly lower average scores of QNWL [8,24]. Moreover, recent study have shown that highly qualified nurses are more satisfied with their quality of work life [24].…”

“…Data obtained from all the tools were coded and analyzed using the software version (24) of the Statistically Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for statistically analysis purposes. The author used the statistical processes that included descriptive analysis, the Pearson Correlation Coefficient, samples t-test, and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA).…”

“…These differences may be attributable to variations in institutional and individual. The survey among 2391 nurses from different Iranian public hospitals showed the quality of working life among nurses' was at a low level [24]. Additionally, in the study conducted by [23] in Saudi Arabia, nurses were dissatisfied with their quality of work life.…”

“…The quality of work life among nursing was found at moderate levels in various recent studies [14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Other researchers have documented nurses were dissatisfied with the quality of their work life [21][22][23][24]. An examination of prior literature limited studies illustrated the correlation between perceived organizational support and quality of working life among nurses [6,25].…”