Interventions for nurses' well-being at work: a quantitative systematic review

Abstract

Aim: To gather, assess and synthesize current research knowledge on the interventions aiming to improve nurses' well-being at work.

Background: Previous reviews describe health care professionals' well-being at work from the perspective of burnout. Research on the interventions for and their effectiveness on nurses' well-being at work is sporadic.

Design: A quantitative systematic review based on the procedure of the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination.

Methods: CINAHL, Cochrane, EBSCO, PubMed, PsycInfo, Scopus databases were sought from 2009-March 2015. The final data consisted of eight studies described in 10 articles. The study design was RCT in three studies, CBA in three and ITS in two studies. The studies were assessed with the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Data were summarised narratively and displayed in a harvest plot.

Results: Two of the six interventions were person-directed, two combined person- and organisation-directed and two organisation-directed interventions. Half of them were mainly targeted at stress management while the others aimed at improving interaction with colleagues, work methods and conditions or at supervision of professional skills.

Conclusions: There was a lot variation in the conceptual bases and the use of evaluation measurements in the studies and the interventions were carried out in a heterogeneous way. Moderate evidence was found to support the use of interventions among nurses employed at in-patient and out-patient units in four out of the six interventions. The review pointed out a need for research on standardised interventions on nurses' well-being at work and their effectiveness with long-term follow-ups.

Keywords: interventions; nurses; systematic review; well-being at work.