An investigation of the relationship between psychosocial work factors and fatigue among nurses

Recent challenges related to patient safety and medical errors in healthcare, has led to a focus on increasing quality across healthcare organizations. Psychosocial work factors and fatigue have been identified as significant factors related to nurses’ performance. The relationship between psychosocial work factors and fatigue has been rarely studied. The aim of this study was investigating the relationship between psychosocial work factors and fatigue among nurses.
Material and In this cross-sectional study, 270 randomly nurses from university hospitals participated. The Persian version of Job Content Questionnaire (P-JCQ) and Swedish Occupational Fatigue Inventory have used the tools for data collection. The correlation coefficient was employed to examine the relationship between job stressors scales and fatigue. Structural equation modeling was applied to fit the model
The mean (SD) of decision latitude 66.32 (7.36), psychological job demand 35.47 (3.68), social support 22.31 (2.64), physical job demand 15.22 (2.18), job insecurity 8.72 (4.06) were found. Decision latitude and social support dimensions had a low level, which indicates higher stress. Moreover, psychological job demand, as well as physical job demand, had a high level which indicates high stress. According to results demonstrate that psychological job demand and physical job demand have a strong association with all dimensions of fatigue ( P high level of job stress was found in the study population. Physical demand was identified as the most effective factor in fatigue. Designing comprehensive intervention that accounts for psychosocial aspects of work environment especially the physical demand for decreasing stress and fatigue, can improve health care quality and also prevent medical errors.