Correlation of Emotional with Behavioral and Physiological Responses to the Nursing and Medical Technician Job in Hospital Facilities

Ciljevi ovog rada su stjecanje uvida u emocionalne, ponašajne i iziološke odgovore na posao medicinskih sestara i tehničara te utvrđivanje povezanosti emocionalnih s ponašajnim i fiziološkim odgovorima na posao i identificiranje razlika u navedenim odgovorima s obzirom na socio-demografska obilježja ispitanika. Istraživanje je provedeno tijekom 2009. godine u bolnicama sekundarne i tercijarnerazine u Republici Hrvatskoj, a uzorak ispitanika je uključivao zaposlene medicinske sestre i tehničare (n=752). Primijenjeni upitnik s sastojao od sljedećih instrumenata: skale JAWS (Job-related Affective Well-being Scale), upitnika CWB-C (Counterproductive Work Behavior Checklist) i upitnika PSI (Physical Symptoms Inventory). Kako bi se ostvarili istraživački ciljevi, provedene su metode deskriptivne statistike, kanonička korelacijska analiza i diskriminativna analiza. Najznačajniji rezultati pokazuju kako većina sestara i tehničara na poslu doživljava pozitivne emocije te manifestira veliki broj tjelesnih simptoma i malo kontraproduktivnog ponašanja. Osim toga, utvrđeno je kako je doživljavanje većeg broja negativnih emocija uz istovremeno doživljavanje manje pozitivnih emocija na poslu, povezano s većim brojem ponašajnih i fizioloških odgovora te da se doživljavanje pozitivnih emocija može pripisati sestrama starije životne dobi koje žive s partnerom te imaju veći broj djece, dok je za sestre mlađe životne dobi koje žive bez partnera i nemaju djecu karakteristično više doživljavanja negativnih emocija. Dobiveni rezultati upućuju na potrebu uvođenja organizacijskih promjena sestrinskog posla (klinička supervizija, programi supervizije) i programa potpore koji bi uvažavali raznolikost sestrinske populacije s obzirom na socio-demografska obilježja. Međutim, potrebno je naglasiti kako se dobiveni rezultati odnose općenito na posao, stoga bi trebalo provoditi daljnja istraživanja koja bi uključivala utvrđivanje zadovoljstva s obzirom na različita obilježja posla, a isto tako i nekih drugih obilježja sestara.Aim of this work is acquiring insight into emotional, behavioral and physiological responses to the nursing and medical technician job and defining correlation of emotional with behavioral and physiological reactions to the job and identification of differences in stated answers with regard to socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents. The research was carried out during the year 2009 in secondary and tertiary level hospitals in the Republic of Croatia. The examinee sample included employed nurses and medical technicians (n-752). Applied questionnaire consisted of following instruments: Job-related Affective Well-being Scale - JAWS, Counterproductive Work Behavior Checklist - CWB-C and Physical Symptoms Inventory - PSI. In order to achieve research aims, methods of descriptive statistics, canonical correlation analyses and discriminant analyses were carried out. The most significant results show that majority of nurses and med.tehnicians experience mostly positive emotions at work and manifest a great number of physical symptoms and a little of counterproductive behavior. Besides, it had been determined that experiencing a greater number of negative emotions along with synchronously less positive ones at work is related to the greater number of behavioral and physiological responses and that experiencing positive emotions may be attributed to elderly nurses living with a partner and having more children, while younger nurses living without a partner and without childless characteristically experience more negative emotions. Obtained outcome indicates the need of introducing changes in nursing job ( clinical supervision, supervisional programmes) and programmers of support, which would consider the diversity of nursing population regarding socio-demographic characteristics. However, it should be pointed out that obtained results relate to job in general. Therefore, additional research should be conducted that would include identifying contentment regarding different job properties and some other characteristics of nurses