Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Sep 16, 2021; 9(26): 7738-7749
Published online Sep 16, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i26.7738
Potential effects of the nursing work environment on the work-family conflict in operating room nurses
Chun-Mei Fu, Jie Ou, Xiao-Mei Chen, Mei-Ye Wang
Chun-Mei Fu, Department of Ophthalmology, Hainan West Central Hospital, Danzhou 571700, Hainan Province, China
Jie Ou, Department of Critical Care Medicine, Hainan General Hospital, Haikou 570311, Hainan Province, China
Xiao-Mei Chen, Operation Room, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical College, Haikou 570311, Hainan Province, China
Mei-Ye Wang, Department of General Practice, Hainan West Central Hospital, Danzhou 571700, Hainan Province, China
Author contributions: Fu CM was responsible for conceptualization, data curation, and methodology and wrote the original draft; Ou J and Chen XM were responsible for visualization and software; Wang MY was responsible for validation and supervision and reviewed and edited the manuscript; All authors approved the final submission.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Hainan West Central Hospital.
Informed consent statement: This study aims to explore the correlation of nursing work environment perception and work-family conflict among the operating room nurses. It is not involved in the patients’ information, so the informed consent is waived by the ethics committee.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have no conflict of interests to declare.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Mei-Ye Wang, BMed, Associate Professor, Department of General Practice, Hainan West Central Hospital, No. 2 Fubo East Road, Nada Town, Danzhou 571700, Hainan Province, China. 452448172@qq.com
Received: May 9, 2021
Peer-review started: May 9, 2021
First decision: June 5, 2021
Revised: June 16, 2021
Accepted: July 20, 2021
Article in press: July 20, 2021
Published online: September 16, 2021
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Organizational behavior has been identified as an important factor in improving overall quality and safety of the hospital care. Yet, there are only few studies that compare the potential impact of the various organizational features of the hospital work environment on nursing service.

Research motivation

Recent research findings have shown that the practice environment scale of the nursing work index (PES-NWI) composite score and the individual subscales might be associated with the nursing outcomes. However, until now, data are not available to describe exactly and compare the work environments of nurses and the nursing outcomes.

Research objectives

To determine the possible effects of hospital work environments and work-family conflict among operating room nurses.

Research methods

A convenience sample comprising 312 operating room nurses from four hospitals in China was created. The data were collected from nurses about their level of job satisfaction and work-to-family conflict in 2017. PES-NWI and work-family conflict scale were used to evaluate the perception of the nursing work environment and the controversy over balance between the life and work. The correlation was analyzed by Pearson correlation analysis, and the influencing factors were determined using hierarchical regression analysis.

Research results

Overall, 300 nurses (96.15%) returned the completed questionnaires. The total average score of the PES-NWI scale of the operating room nurses was 3.07 ± 0.43. The total score of work-family conflict of operating room nurses was 52.32 ± 8.79. Consistent with the published research from other countries, the scores of the PES-NWI scale were found to be negatively correlated with the scores of work-family conflict. In addition, hierarchical regression analysis showed the number of nine shifts per month and the perception of the nursing work environment were major influencing factors of work-family conflict.

Research conclusions

Our study showed that the nursing work environment of nurses in the operating room and work-family conflict were both operative at medium levels. The findings from this study clearly indicate the importance of work-to-family conflict and work environments to the nursing work. While work setting has a strong as well as well-documented influence on overall job satisfaction, nursing managers should establish a conducive nursing work environment and formulate systemic interventions for the various influencing factors, so as to promote the development of careers of nurses.

Research perspectives

The characteristics mentioned above might help people to pay more attention to the nursing work environment and work-family conflict.