The Relation of Work, Family Balance, and Life Quality of Nurses Working at Teaching Hospitals of Kerman-Iran

Abstract

Background: Work and family are the source of tranquility and if the balance between these two is not provided, pleasure, happiness and peace of human being would be lost, which will cause unreturnable loss for him. Regarding the importance of nurses’ role in health system, the present study aimed to study the relation of work-family balance and quality of life of nurses working at selected Iranian teaching hospitals. Methods: Present study is a cross sectional, descriptive-analytical study which was carried out on 306 nurses working at three teaching hospitals of Iran. The sampling method was stratified sampling and questionnaire was the data collection instrument. Data analysis was carried out using inferential statistics through SPSS Ver18. Findings: nurses spent more time to work than family and they had more satisfaction of their family life than their work. This suggests the imbalance of nurses in two dimension of time balance and satisfaction balance, which has resulted a decrease in quality of life of studied nurses. Nurse’s involvement in work and life as the third component of work-life balance concept, was balanced and it did not indicate significant correlation with quality of life. Nurses experiencing less work-family conflict and more stress in their life, had higher level of quality of life. Conclusion: Nurses will be more exposed to the negative outcomes of work-life imbalance than other groups of employees, so paying attention to managing the demands of work and family aimed at improving the nurses’ quality of life, has specific importance. Hence, designing a plan which defines main components of work-family balance among various groups of hospital staff including nurses, should be put at the top agenda of Iran’s health system policy makers.Â