The advance of medical technology has significantly improved the cure rate of diseases. Therefore people pursue not only longer but also healthier and happier life. According to the statistics from the Department of Health, Executive Yuan, in 2005. Nurses are the main workforce in medical institutions.
However, clinical nursing is hard work. Clinical nurses have to work three rotating shifts as well as long hours. In addition, they cannot arrange their vacation freely, so the purpose of vacation--?physical and mental relaxation?--is unattainable.
Apparently the work pattern of clinical nurses has substantial influence on their quality of life, which, however, is often neglected. The purpose of this study was to explore how the demographic features, work conditions and health
consciousness of nurses are related to their quality of life. A questionnaire ? WHOQOL-BREF Taiwan version? was adopted for data collection in this study. The questionnaire was divided into four main domains?physical health, psychology, social relationship and environment?with 28 questions designed to run a cross- sectional survey. From December 12 2006 through January 24 2007, the
questionnaires were distributed to 3 regional teaching hospitals in central Taiwan.
The results showed that, the nurses had higher score when they were older, stayed married, had more children, cared less about income, had higher salary, had longer service in nursing, serve in operating room or anesthesiology
department, had less workload, had fewer days of duty on holidays or in the night-time and had good perceived health status. Further, the results showed that the nurses had good perceived health status had better physical health,
psychology, social relationship, environment and overall quality of life. The
research results can provide reference for the management of medical institutions when personnel allocation and human resource planning are conducted.
