OCCUPATIONAL STRESS AND DISSATISFACTION WITH QUALITY OF WORK LIFE IN NURSING

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective: to analyze the association between occupational stress, quality of work life and associated factors among nursing workers. Method: 309 nursing workers of a public general hospital participated in this cross-sectional study. The Total Quality of Work Life and the Job Stress Scale instruments were used to evaluate the quality of work life and occupational stress, respectively. Results: associations were estimated using Poisson regression analysis combined with robust variance. We found association between dissatisfaction with quality of work life and smoking (PR=1.53; 95%CI: 1.02-2.31), work at the care units for highly dependent or critically ill patients (PR=2.47; 95%CI: 1.18-5.19), low social support at work (PR=1.76; 95%CI: 1.29-2.40) and the quadrants of the demand-control model "active job" (PR=1.74; 95%CI: 1.04-2.92) and "high-strain job" (PR=2.54; 95%CI: 1.51-4.27) . Conclusion: these results may help the hospital and nursing managers to develop and implement strategies in order to reduce excessive demands and work overload and increase social support among the nursing staff.