Nursing practice environment, satisfaction and safety climate: The nurses' perception

Abstract

Objective: To assess the nurses' perception on the practice, job satisfaction, safety climate and to verify correlations among these variables and the adequacy of material and human resources, as well as the intention to stay at the institution and in the profession. Methods: A descriptive study with a quantitative approach was undertaken. To calculate the sample, a p-coefficient of 0.50 was considered, assuming a 3%sampling error and a 5%significance level, which resulted in 1057 subjects. For the data collection, a characterization form was used, which contained the variables sex, monthly income, length of experience at the institution, existence of another employment bond and weekly hour load. A Likert-type response scale was used. The Nursing Work Index-Revised (NWI-R) was used to assess the nurse's perception on the practice. Results: The nurses' perception of the practice environment is positive, except in the control over the work environment domain. They assessed the safety climate as negative and are dissatisfied at work. A strong negative correlation was identified between control over the work environment and the adequacy of the number of professionals, as well as a strong positive correlation between job satisfaction and the intention to stay at the institution. Conclusion: The nursing work environment was assessed as favorable, except for control over the work environment, mainly influenced by the insufficient number of nursing professionals. The safety climate was perceived as unfavorable at the different health care institutions in the State of São Paulo and the nurses did not report job satisfaction.