The Social Values of Nursing Staff and the Perceived Quality of Their Professional Lives

Abstract

This study’s main purpose involves exploring the relationship between the social values of nursing staff and the perception they have of their professional lives. A further aim is to examine how their terms of employment and tenure of service relate to the quality of their careers and their social values. The research consisted of a non-experimental quantitative approach of a descriptive nature involving 380 nursing staff at four public hospitals in Madrid (Spain). The values were appraised by means of the Schwarz Value Survey (SVS) and the quality of their careers was measured through the Quality of Professional Life (QPL-35) questionnaire. The results reveal significant correlations between the two, highlighting the significance of such values as universalism, benevolence, achievement and power depending on their terms of employment, on the one hand, and all the values in the Schwartz model according to the length of their tenure on the other. The findings suggest that terms of employment and tenure are significantly related to the axiological profile of nursing staff and the quality of their professional lives. This study provides major empirical evidence that contributes to our understanding of how social values and the quality of professional lives are interwoven within the field of nursing in Spain.