The working model and work-to-family conflict in female nurses working in Guangzhou City hospital

Abstract

Background: Nursing professional, up to today, is still women dominated. The consistent medical reform and scarcity of nursing labor force in China contribute to the high workload and work related pressure. On the other hand, family always plays an essential role in women’s life, especially for Chinese women. They are believed to be the principal person to provide family care. Therefore, female nurses always face the challenges in accomplishing the duty from work and family, and also face the difficulties in balancing the work-related role and family-related role. The incompatibility between work-related role and family-related role leads to work-to-family conflict. It is a kind of interrole conflict to which women are especially sensitive. Work-to-family conflict is defined as a type of interrole conflict which occurs as a result that the work related responsibilities interfere with family life. Literatures suggested that there were many aspects are significantly related to work-family conflict, such as the working model, workload, and social support. And work-family conflict was demonstrated to be associated with lower job satisfaction.

Objectives: This study mainly aim to explore the relationship between shift work models and self-perceived work-to-family conflict in Chinese female nurses working in Guangzhou city hospitals. Many related aspects are also explored and we in particular focus on the effect of night shift work demand. Furthermore, we aim to detect the association between work-to-family conflict and job satisfaction among recruited sample subjects.

Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted in several Guangzhou city hospitals. Employed female registered nurses were included. Questionnaires were delivered to nurses in hard copy or soft copy, involving categories of working model, working demand, job satisfaction, and work-to-family conflict. 315 questionnaires were delivered and 261 of them were returned with a response rate of approximately 83%. After data cleaning, total 250 valid-responded questionnaires were analyzed finally. Statistical description, subgroup analysis, linear regression analysis, and multivariable linear regression analysis were established for data analysis and hypothesis testing.

Results: In this study, family financial responsibility, occupation support from family, overall workload, overtime work, organizational policy support, supervisor support were found to be significantly associated with self-perceived work-to-family conflict. The effects of night shift on work-to-family conflict were different among subject with different demographic characteristic, family role, work role, family-related support, and work-related support. Shift model was found to be significantly associated to work-to-family conflict, and day-night shift was related to higher level of work-to-family conflict. But the relationship between the frequency of night shift and work-to-family conflict was not found through the linear regression model. And it was found that there was a significant negative correlation association between work-to-family conflict and job satisfaction, meaning that higher work-to-family conflict was associated with lower job satisfaction among the sample subjects of this study. Among the six items measuring the overall job satisfaction, job autonomy, task requirement, organizational policy, and professional status were found to significantly related to work-to-family conflict level.

Conclusions: The association between shift models and work-to-family conflict was confirmed but it was affected by nurses’ demographic characteristic. The frequency of night shift was not found to significantly affect the self-perceived work-to-family conflict level. And there was a significant negative relationship between work-to-family conflict and job satisfaction, where higher job satisfaction was associated with lower work-to-family conflict.