Nurse work environment and its impact on reasons for missed care, safety climate, and job satisfaction: A cross-sectional study

Aim: To describe the nurse work environment and its relation to reasons for missed nursing care, safety climate, and job satisfaction.

Design: This was a cross-sectional study.

Methods: Two hundred and nineteen nursing professionals by a convenience sample from two teaching hospitals between April 2017 and October 2017. The variables nurse work environment, reasons for missed nursing care, safety climate, and job satisfaction were collected by measuring instruments, and a descriptive, correlation, and comparative analyses were performed.

Results: The nurse work environment was classified as mixed, with three subscales of the instrument resulting in scores that represented a better nurse work environment, namely: nursing foundations for quality care; collegial nurse-physician relations; and nurse manager ability, leadership, and support. The most frequent reasons for missed care were related to labour and material resources. A better work environment was associated with a high level of work satisfaction, better perception of the safety climate, and fewer reasons for missed care.

Conclusion: Better nurse work environments can contribute to improving nurses' perception of job satisfaction and the safety climate, and to reducing reasons for missed care.

Impact: Authentic leadership in the nurse work environment has implications in terms of reducing the reasons for missed nursing care, improving the perception of the safety climate, and job satisfaction. Nurse managers should evaluate the nurse work environment and missed nursing care as an important predictors of the quality of patient care.