Exploring Perceptions of the Work Environment among Psychiatric Nursing Staff in France: A Qualitative Study Using Hierarchical Clustering Methods.

Baptiste Cougot,Jules Gauvin,Leila Moret,Paolo Durando,Anne Armant,Nicolas Gillet,Ghozlane Fleury-Bahi,Dominique Tripodi,Guglielmo Dini

doi:10.3390/ijerph17010142

Abstract

Most studies on workers’ health are based on non-specific models of occupational stress, thereby limiting the understanding and research on efficient interventions. This qualitative approach aimed to explore the structure of resources and constraints in the working environment of nurses in a deliberately open approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 37 nurses working in closed and open inpatient psychiatric wards in a French university hospital. The data were statistically analyzed using a hierarchical clustering method. Our model highlighted a systemic structure, describing the interactions, including patients, nurses, doctors, and managers in a specific material, communicational, and organizational environment. The results show a discursive structure organized around dimensions pertaining to “environment”, “patients”, “medical-care group”, and “the individual”. Our model showed interest in an interdisciplinary approach that encompasses occupational medicine and social psychology.

Highlights

Many models have explained stress at work, the most common being the Job Demand, Decision Latitude, and Mental Strain model, the Effort-Reward Imbalance model, the OrganizationalJustice model, and the Leadership model [1,2,3,4,5,6].Changes in work organization and workplace conditions have created new occupational hazards and risks for workers, with new and emerging challenges in the management for occupational health and safety stakeholders
The use of a qualitative approach in exploring the work organization, as defined in Labor Law, is a pioneering study in France. This approach enables the implementation of a new model of occupational medicine observations and/or clinical examinations helping understand health care work, and to develop prevention plans and empowerment within the health care facility (Figure 2)
With a view of modeling occupational health in a medical department, our results suggest the benefits of exploring precisely and operating the psychosocial processes involved in the formation of efficient collectives, and the collectives’ relationship with the organizational and structural contexts, especially in terms of teams participating in defining the work resources at their disposal

Summary

Introduction

Many models have explained stress at work, the most common being the Job Demand, Decision Latitude, and Mental Strain model, the Effort-Reward Imbalance model, the OrganizationalJustice model, and the Leadership model [1,2,3,4,5,6].Changes in work organization and workplace conditions have created new occupational hazards and risks for workers, with new and emerging challenges in the management for occupational health and safety stakeholders. Many models have explained stress at work, the most common being the Job Demand, Decision Latitude, and Mental Strain model, the Effort-Reward Imbalance model, the Organizational. The Leadership model [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Changes in work organization and workplace conditions have created new occupational hazards and risks for workers, with new and emerging challenges in the management for occupational health and safety stakeholders. A large body of literature has recognized several job stressors Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 142; doi:10.3390/ijerph17010142 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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Discussion

Conclusion