Iranian Journal of Ergonomics

Introduction: The quality of work life is one of the main issues in human resource management that is related to job satisfaction, resignation, turnover rate, personality and job stress. The present study was conducted to investigate the quality of working life in relation to stress levels and participation in health care workers in cities.

Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 124 random health care workers employed in centers across the city of Hamadan. Walton's quality of work life questionnaire, Belcher's participation questionnaire and a stress questionnaire were used for achieving the study objectives. The Pearson test was used for determining the correlation between the variables.

Results: The results showed that 40.3% of the subjects reported their overall participation rate to be low, 38.7%% reported it to be moderate and 21% reported it to be high. In addition, 73.4% of the subjects reported low levels of perceived stress and 26.6% reported it to be very high. The findings of the study showed a significant positive correlation between participation and the quality of work life (r=0.33 and p<​0.001). The quality of work life and stress were also found to have a negative correlation (p=0.015 and r=-0.219).

Conclusion: Through understanding participation and levels of stress among the employees and through presenting and implementing appropriate strategies for reducing stress and encouraging participation, the quality of work life and ultimately the productivity of health care organizations can be increased.

Introduction: As workplaces, hospitals are filled with stressors, including environmental and physical stressors (such as noise pollution and poor lighting), human stressors (such as conflicts with colleagues) and organizational stressors (such as heavy workloads and unsuitable work shifts). The inability to cope with these stressors entails physical, psychological and behavioral outcomes for the employees. The present study was conducted to evaluate job stress in nursing personnel and to design a model for assessing the severity of musculoskeletal disorders caused by job stress among nurses.

Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional analytical study was conducted on 500 nurses working in various teaching hospitals of Hamadan. Data were collected through four questionnaires, including the Job Content Questionnaire, Maslach’s Burnout Inventory, the Visual Analogue Scale and a Demographic Questionnaire. Data were then analyzed in SPSS-16 and LISREL-8.3 using descriptive statistics.

Results: The results of the structural equation modeling showed that job burnout has a mediating effect between the severity of musculoskeletal disorders and job stress. In other words, if factors contributing to job burnout are present, the psychosocial risk factors yielded by the Job Content Questionnaire then contribute to the severity of musculoskeletal disorders.

Conclusion: Given the negative effects of job stress among nurses, health decision-makers are recommended to take measures to reduce stressors such as the physical and psychological demands of the workplace, the lack of support and the lack of job security.