Perception of the Quality of Nursing Work Life

1 Katarina Tokić

2 Slađana Režić

1 Clinic for children’s diseases Zagreb, Institute for pediatric oncology and hematology with day hospital „Mladen Ćepulić“, Zagreb, Croatia

2 Department for Health Care Quality Assurance and Improvement, UHC Zagreb, Croatia

Article received: 23.10.2022.

Article accepted: 21.11.2022.

Author for correspondence:

Slađana Režić

Department for Health Care Quality Assurance and Impro- vement, UHC Zagreb

Kišpatićeva 12, Zagreb, Croatia E-mail: srezic@kbc-zagreb.hr

https://doi.org/10.24141/2/6/2/3

Keywords: life quality, quality of work life, intensive care, nursing

Abstract

Introduction. Quality of work life is a multidimen- sional construct consisting of several mutually linked factors, such as job satisfaction, commitment to work, motivation, work efficiency, work safety, im- provement of abilities and work-life balance.

Aim. The aim of this paper was to determine the quality of work life in nurses employed in intensive care and anesthesiology units, as well as to deter- mine whether there is a difference in the quality of work life regarding gender, education, years of ser- vice, workplace, and way of working.

Methods and respondents. A cross-sectional study was conducted in May 2021. The study was conduct- ed by using a socio-demographic data questionnaire and the Brooks Quality of Nursing Work Life Survey which consists of 42 items divided into 4 subscales. 102 respondents employed in intensive care and an- esthesiology units at the UHC Zagreb and UHC Ses- tre milosrdnice participated in the study.

Results. The questionnaire was filled in by 102 re- spondents, and the overall results show that nurses assess the quality of their work life as being moder- ate. Looking at every subscale separately, nurses as- sessed the quality of work life as being moderate in the work life/home life, work design and work world subscales. In the work context subscale, nurses have assessed their quality of work life as being high. No statistically significant difference was found con- cerning gender, education, years of service, work- place, and way of working.

Conclusion. The quality of nursing work life was moderate in all subscales, except in the work context subscale, where it was assessed as high. The results have shown that nurses are dissatisfied with their salaries, their work not being acknowledged and their excessive workload. Management should inter- vene in order to improve the quality of nursing work life.