Application of the Nursing Worklife Model to the ICU setting

Abstract

The Nursing Worklife Model explains how work-environment characteristics that affect nursing practice affect nurses' lives in the workplace by contributing to or mitigating burnout. Using the characteristics that are known to be preferred by nurses and consistent with magnet hospital properties will help nurse managers reduce nursing turnover by decreasing burnout and by improving job satisfaction for their staff. This article describes how the five domains of the Nursing Worklife Model can be applied in the critical care setting. Within each of the five domains (nursing leadership, nurses' involvement in hospital affairs, staffing and resource adequacy, nurse-physician collaboration, nursing model of care) are multiple strategies that can be implemented to improve the practice environment for nurses.