Relationships among general health, job satisfaction, work engagement and job features in nurses working in a public hospital: A cross‐sectional study

Aim and objective To describe relations among health, job satisfaction, work engagement and job features in Spanish nurses working in a public hospital. Background It has been established that nursing staff health affects the quality of their work and is associated with job satisfaction, work engagement and different job features. Understanding the relationships among these variables could provide useful information to improve staff performance and prevent work‐related illnesses. Design A descriptive, cross‐sectional, correlational and comparative study was performed between January–April 2016. This research adheres to the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology guideline. Methods A total of 926 nurses were requested to complete an online questionnaire. Nurses on sick leave or in period of unpaid leave during data collection were excluded. The final study population reached 392 nurses. The online survey was fully completed by 373 nurses. General health, job satisfaction and work engagement were measured. Tools used were as follows: sociodemographic questions, the General Health Questionnaire, the Overall Job Satisfaction Scale and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. Results Significant correlations among general health, job satisfaction and work engagement were found. Specifically, general health levels were negatively correlated with job satisfaction and work engagement subscales. Job features with influence on these constructs were the type of shift, type of contract, type of service, salary, type of continuous formation and having a specialty/profile. Conclusions Our results indicate that job‐related features affect job satisfaction, general health and work engagement. The organisation should make interventions over these features to increase job satisfaction and work engagement levels, since they are relevant for nursing staff health and patient security. Relevance to clinical practice The analysis of the relationships among general health, job satisfaction, work engagement and job features in nurses could offer a basis to design preventive programmes to improve staff performance and prevent work‐related illnesses.