Comparative Analysis of General Health and Life Satisfaction among Special and General Wards

Life satisfaction and general health varies among nurses working at different departments of hospital due to the distinctive nature of their job stresses. Hence, the present study aimed to determine and compare the general health and life satisfaction among the nurses working in the general and special departments of hospitals located in the West Azerbaijan Province.
The present research was a causal-comparative study. The study population consisted of all the nurses working in the three hospitals located in the south of the West Azerbaijan Province (Miandoab, Shahin Dezh, and Takab) in 2014. Simple random sampling was used to select 181 participants (108 nurses working in ordinary departments and 73 nurses in special departments). Data were collected by General Health Questionnaire and Diener Life Satisfaction Scale. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Mann-Whitney non-parametric test, and t-test) in the SPSS software version 20 and at the significant level of P = 0.05.
The results of this study showed that there is a significant difference between the general health of nurses working in special and general departments of hospitals (P=0.008). The nurses working in general departments had a higher level of satisfaction in comparison with the nurses working in special departments.
The results showed that the percentage of general health components and life satisfaction among the nurses working in general departments was higher than those working in special departments. Therefore, attention to nurse's individual capacities, such as resilience and general health, is necessary to increase mental health and to improve the level of life satisfaction among the nurses in special departments.