Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Dec 14;19(24):16789.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph192416789.

Life Satisfaction of Nurses during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland

Anna Stefanowicz-Bielska  1 , Magdalena Słomion  1 , Małgorzata Rąpała  2
Affiliations

Life Satisfaction of Nurses during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland

Anna Stefanowicz-Bielska et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Health care practitioners are at highest risk of COVID-19 disease. They experience an enormous overload of work and time pressures. The objective of the study was to assess nurses' life satisfaction.

Method: The study included professionally active nurses. The research method was an author's questionnaire and a standardized questionnaire, the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS).

Results: The study group included 361 working nurses. The mean raw score and the sten score of the nurses' responses to the statements on the SWLS questionnaire were 21.0 (SD ± 5.6, range = 5-35) and 5.73 (SD ± 1.94, range = 1-10), respectively. It was shown that lower life satisfaction was experienced by nurses aged 51 to 60 (raw score: p = 0.003, sten score: p = 0.005), as well as nurses with secondary and undergraduate nursing education (raw score: p = 0.061, sten score: p = 0.043). Nurses who had a higher self-evaluation of the level of knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 infection experienced greater life satisfaction (raw score: p = 0.008, sten score: p = 0.022).

Conclusions: The majority of Polish nurses surveyed during the COVID-19 pandemic had a low or medium level of life satisfaction. The low response rate to the survey was most likely due to work overloads during the pandemic. Working in a public service profession, a nurse is exposed to stressful conditions related to protecting human health. Constant difficult and stressful situations and total fatigue experienced by nursing professionals can be the cause of a lack of motivation, occupational burnout, listlessness and mental and physical disease. Further research is necessary to assess the factors positively influencing the level of life satisfaction.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; infections; life; nurses; occupational stress; satisfaction.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study design.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a,b) Influence of the nurses’ ages on their satisfaction with life.
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a,b) Influence of the nurses’ levels of education on their satisfaction with life. 1—Master of nursing, 2—Bachelor of nursing, 3—Secondary education in nursing.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(a,b) Influence of the nurses’ self-assessed knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 infection on their satisfaction with life.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Huang C., Wang Y., Li X., Ren L., Zhao J., Hu Y., Zhang L., Fan G., Xu J., Gu X., et al. Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. Lancet. 2020;395:497–506. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization Naming the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) and the Virus that Causes it. [(accessed on 14 September 2022)]. Available online: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technica....
    1. Fan Y., Wang X., Zhang J., Mo D., Xiao X. The risk factors for the exacerbation of COVID-19 disease: A case–control study. J. Clin. Nurs. 2020;30:725–731. doi: 10.1111/jocn.15601. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Baud D., Qi X., Nielsen-Saines K., Musso D., Pomar L., Favre G. Real estimates of mortality following COVID-19 infection. Lancet Infect. Dis. 2020;20:773. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30195-X. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Li J., Wang L., Guo S., Xie N., Yao L., Cao Y., Day S.W., Howard S.C., Graff J.C., Gu T., et al. The data set for patient information based algorithm to predict mortality cause by COVID-19. Data Brief. 2020;30:105619. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.105619. - DOI - PMC - PubMed