Nursing Environments: Nurses Perspectives

Abstract

Nurses have been found to experience higher burnout levels compared with other health professionals owing to the nature of their work. High burnout levels among nurses have been attributed to their stressful working environments. Prolonged exposure to work-related stress leading to burnout has negative consequences for job satisfaction and general health of nurses. This has wider implications on the health system, such as high turnover rates and compromised patient care. There is a significant gap in research focusing on the relationship between work-related stress, burnout, job satisfaction and general health of nurses in developing countries such as South Africa. A study exploring the relationships between work-related stress, burnout, job satisfaction and general health among South African nurses over time was conducted in order to inform how best to improve nursing environments while enabling quality nursing practice and patient care. A total of 895 nurses participated in the study at baseline and 277 of these individuals were followed up with a year later. Findings showed that although stress related to security risks in the workplace predicts job satisfaction as well as general health, stress related to patient care and nursing shortages better predict job satisfaction and general health over time. Burnout better predicts job satisfaction than general health over time.