Organizational health and quality of life: survey among ambulance nurses in prehospital emergency care

Background: The workplace plays a central role in causing stress and different kinds of syndromes and diseases. More generally, organizational procedures and practices could have an impact on nurses’ quality of life. Although several studies have investigated this link, none of them considered nurses working in prehospital emergency care. Objectives: To investigate the role of organizational health factors that affect the quality of life and psychosomatic complaints of ambulance nurses.Method: Our sample included 411 ambulance nurses. Workers were administered two questionnaires to assess organizational health and quality of life. Descriptive and correlational analyses were used to test our assumptions. Conclusion: Several organizational health dimensions provided an explanation for the complaints reported by nurses working in prehospital emergency care in terms of quality of life and psychosomatic disorders.The results allowed identification of possible interventions focusing on specific duties and organizational aspects that would improve the quality of nurses’ health.