Quality of life among nurses working in different health care setting in the state of Karnataka, India

Context: Nurses reactions on stressors can be physiological, psychological and behavioral leading to stress related to mental and physical diseases that decrease well-being, satisfaction and quality of life. Aim: To investigate the quality of life (QOL) among nurses working in different healthcare settings in hospitals of Karnataka State, India. Settings and Design: This is a cross-sectional study carried out in two regions of Karnataka State, India with a total sample size of 501. Subjects and Methods: WHO evaluation instrument on Quality of Life World Health Organization Quality of Life-Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF) is the tool used for collecting and analysing data. It composed of four domains: Physical health, psychological health, social relationships and the environmental domain. Statistical Analysis Used: The mean score of items within each domain is used to calculate the domain score. Transformed scores were estimated using the tables for standardizing scores from 0-100. SPSS 16.0 Version is used for statistical analysis. Results: For overall physical health status of nurses was "ill" in both the hospitals (34%; 23%) with significance at 0.01 levels. The mean score for psychological domain was least (41.83). Overall perception of QOL result showed significance at 0.01 level for all domains except for psychological domain. Conclusions: Hospital authorities and health managers of any type of health care setting need to plan for enhancing better quality of life for nurses by planning for better working environment by providing facilities for coping mental demands, software systems and work-rest schedules to reduce the jobs physical demands. Thus, enhance QOL of nurses resulting in better healthcare services to the community