Impact of factors associated with quality of life in nurses of intensive care units

Abstract

Objective To evaluate factors associated with the quality of life of intensive care nurses. Methods Cross-sectional, exploratory, descriptive study developed in three intensive care units of a public hospital of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, between January and May 2013. The study sample consisted of 40 nurses. Two questionnaires were applied: sociodemographic and WHOQOL-bref. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, minimum, maximum and 0-100 score). Results 90% of the participants were females (n=36), of whom 50% were aged between 25 and 30 years (n=20) and 50% single (n=20). 62.5% of them did not have children (n=25) and 60% had a workload of more than 44 hours per week (n=24). Regarding their understanding about quality of life (QoL), 22.5% stated that they felt "bad" in relation to health satisfaction, and 27.5% said they were "dissatisfied". As for the domains of QoL, the following scores were obtained: physical (63.04); psychological (65.44); social relations (62.71) and environment (52.73). Conclusion These results show that intensive care nurses obtained less satisfactory scores in the domains of QoL evaluated by the WHOQOL-bref, mainly in the domains of social relations and environment.