Psychosocial work environment and
mental health of nurses in a general hospital

Lee, Yang Sun

Department of Nursing
Graduate School, Kyungpook National University
Daegu, Korea
(Supervised by Professor Choi, Eun Suk)

This study is a descriptive research to assess psychosocial work environment of nurses working in a general hospital to confirm its correlation with mental health. The subjects of the study were nurses working in the hospital of B university located in A metropolitan city. And a census was conducted, and total of 219 questionnaires were analyzed. The survey was carried out from May 23, 2012 to May 30, 2012 for the duration of 7 days. To assess psychosocial work environment, a total of 23 variables from the categories of work requirements, the organization of work and work contents, cooperation and leadership, work vs. personal life, and value vs. the entire company were investigated. And sleep disorder, burn out, stress, and depression were investigated to assess mental health.

The result of the study is as follows.

1. In mental health area, there were significant differences in age, education level, the department where subjects work, marital status, years of clinical experience, and types of shift.
2. According to the correlation analysis on the variables of sleep disorder, burn out, stress, and depression, all the variables indicated positive relationships with each variable.
3. According to the correlation analysis on detail variables of psychosocial work environment and variables of mental health, following variables indicated correlations with all the variables of mental health; work volume, work speed, cognitive burden, emotional burden, the meaning of work, job involvement, role clarity, role conflict, the sense of community, work instability, conflict between work and family, trust on management, and trust among coworkers. Also, according to multiple regression analysis, a conflict between work and family is a variable that commonly affects the variables of mental health directly.

From the result of the study, I propose following suggestions.
First, replication studies are necessary to confirm the causes affecting mental health of all the nurses by expanding study participants.
Second, since there is a strong correlation between psychosocial work environment and mental health, continuous investigations on psychosocial work environment of nurses and the development of effective intervention programs appear to be necessary.