ΝURSES' WORKING CONDITIONS AND PA-TIENTS' OUTCOMES

Introduction: The professional practice environment in healthcare facilities affects the quality and safety of care provided to patients. Aim: To explore the correlation between working conditions of nurses and patients’ outcomes. Methodology: A systematic review of the literature in the international electronic databases PubMed, Cinalh and Scopus was performed. Selection criteria of the studies were: a) the nurses to evaluate the working environment through a questionnaire, b) the outcomes of the studies to be the adverse outcomes of the patients, c) primary studies and d) the studies to be written in English or Greek from 2015 to 2020. Results: In the review 13 cross-sectional studies were included. Most studies used the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) (n=10) as a tool to assess the working environment of nurses (n=7) and were conducted in the USA (n=7). The results of the studies showed the best work environment is associated with a reduced risk of adverse patient outcomes, such as falls, nosocomial infections, mortality, pressure ulcers, and increased quality of care provided. Conclusions: A better work environment is associated with higher levels of quality and patient safety and fewer adverse outcomes