PERCEPTION OF NURSE WORK ENVIRONMENT IN MATERNITY HOSPITAL

Work environment has been recognized as an important factor to facilitate or constrain nurses organizational and quality care practice. The Revised Nursing Work Index was internationally used to describe professional nursing work environment and morale. Aim: was to study the relationship between nurse work environment, job outcomes and to assess nurse care quality. of care. Method: 57 based Likert Scale Items of Nursing Work Index were surveyed on 290 nurses from 11 different Hospital wards/Units. Three reliable subscales related to physician-nurse relationship, nurse management, and hospital organizational support were individually assessed. Statistical analysis of the obtained data was performed using SPSS 23 program in terms of Chi-square test for the 4 points Likert Scale and the three subscales of the 57 Items to detect any significant differences between them. Results: Demographic characteristics showed that all respondent were females aged 26-40 years and either hold a diploma (74.83%) or B.Sc. degree in nursing. Positive responses were demonstrated in the favor of the absolutely agree and agree on points for 20 NWI-R, while 28 items were negatively checked for the partially disagree and very strongly disagree, in the meantime, 9 items were identified as neutral (p > 0.05). Statistically, a significant difference was found in the favor of the negative responses when compared with the positive responses (p = 0.000), indicating the need to improve the attitude of the nurses towards these negative responses. Regarding the responses toward the three subscales, the response on the first subscale, was found insignificant and considered neutral between the agreed and disagreed scales (p > 0.05). The second and third subscale showed a highly significant response in the favor of the disagreed points of the scale (p = 0.000). Conclusion: It is evidenced that there are low-morality and increased dissatisfaction among the nursing staff as reflected by the negative responses for the majority of the NWI-R items, nurse management at the unit level and hospital organizational support. There is considerable need to improve nurse's morality by boosting activities through refreshment courses, job recognition, salary motivation and sharing in decision-making activities