Professional satisfaction and work environment of the nursing team in intensive care units

Abstract

Objectives: to verify the association between the work environment and the professional satisfaction of Nursing workers by type of intensive care unit: adult and child. Method: a cross-sectional and analytical study. It was performed with Nursing professionals (n=226)
from intensive care units of three general hospitals (H1, H2 and H3) in Paraná, Brazil. To measure job satisfaction, the validated Brazilian version of the Index of Work Satisfaction
was used, and to extract the Nursing team's perception of the work environment, the validated Brazilian version of the Nursing Work Index-Revised was chosen. After the tabulated data, a descriptive and inferential statistical analysis was performed. Results: overall, the teams from all hospitals and units reported a good satisfaction and perception about their work environments. The statistically significant differences regarding job satisfaction were as follows: worse remuneration domain in the child ICU in
H2 (p-value=0.035); and interaction and nurse-physician interaction domain with higher (worse) mean values in the adult ICU in H3 (p-values=0.036 and 0.011, respectively).
Regarding the work environment, there was a higher mean (worse environment) in the adult ICU in H3 for the physician-nurse relationship domain (p-value=0.023). There was no statistical significance in the comparison of the work environment scores for the other institutions. Conclusion: the teams were satisfied with their work and positively evaluated their practice environment. However, some punctual differences between the adult and child ICUs may be considered for more assertive management strategies, especially regarding relational aspects in the adult ICU from the public hospital.