Nearly one in two nurses feel they do not have time to do their job properly.
In the hospital sector, 80% of employees say they frequently have to interrupt their work for an unscheduled task and always or often have to hurry, compared with 46% of employees in all sectors.
Is the workload too heavy for the resources available? A profession that likes to complain?
These figures reveal problems with the quality of life at work for care staff. How can we distinguish between the two and, above all, how can we cultivate quality of life at work? This article is inspired by the work of Gollac to propose 5 behaviours to adopt for a better life at the hospital.
How to measure quality of life at work?
The first step is to understand and therefore to measure. Setting up quality of work life indicators is a major public health issue. This gives us information on the determinants of quality of life at work.
Indeed, the establishment uses indicators related to working conditions (difficulty, quality of relations with colleagues, etc.), but also indicators related to health and absenteeism or career paths (continuing education, for example). The list of indicators must be specific to each situation in order to best correspond to the context of the establishment.
Several theoretical models exist. We have chosen two of them: Siegrist's and Karasek's models.
Siegrist's model aims to predict the psychological distress and health problems that can arise in the presence of an imbalance between the effort required by the work and the recognition received. Caregivers put effort into their work and expect that this work, in return, will provide them with rewards (self-esteem, feelings of self-efficacy, etc.). According to this model, the lack of reciprocity between costs and gains is likely to lead to emotional stress.
The Karasek scale aims to evaluate mental stress at work. The questionnaire measures stress at work along three axes
- psychological demand ;
- decision latitude; and
- social support at work.
A number of risk factors are defined by Gollac:
- work intensity and time
- emotional demands
- autonomy
- social relationships
- value conflicts
- socio-economic insecurity
Leave your luggage at the hospital.
The nursing staff is often "in the thick of it". Managing the care and administrative side of the job while responding to urgent requests and remaining available for new admissions is the nurse's daily routine. If there is not enough flexibility or support to cope, or if this complexity is not recognised, then health consequences can arise. The right balance between effort and recognition is no longer maintained. Up to a certain threshold, the increase in workload can be compensated for by changes in strategy or method, if the organisation allows it.
For example, self-esteem can be damaged when "doing fast" clashes with the caregiver's conception of "doing well". Studies using the Karasek model have shown the preponderant effect of excessive demand.
The perceived intensity of work is also the result of a series of factors such as responsibility, and we know how much responsibility the carer has. We only have to think of the errors and oversights that we, as carers, have inevitably experienced at one time or another.
A feeling that is exacerbated when the availability required increases. We have to replace a colleague at short notice during the night, we have to provide a clean service after having provided quality care. At the risk of completely destructuring our lives outside of work, we do it because we are responsible.
