Measurement of the nurse organizational climate of neonatal intensive care units

Abstract

The concept of organizational climate is important for the study and understanding of work organizations. Researchers have not yet studied the organizational climate of hospital intensive care units, so it is not clear that the dimensions useful in description of other work settings will be appropriate for conceptualizing neonatal intensive care units (NICU's). This study investigated nurse perceptions of the organizational climate of NICU's in a sample of 18 hospitals. The Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire was modified for use in the NICU setting. A set of homogeneous climate scales was developed from the revised instrument. The six scales of the resulting instrument, the Nursing Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire, Form B (NOCDQ-B), demonstrated median internal-consistency reliability of .69 on cross-validation. Analysis of variance indicated that each of the six NOCDQ-B dimensions served to differentiate the NICU's in the study. Further, significant relationships were found at the unit mean level between three of the six NOCDQ-B scales and nurse satisfaction, as measured by the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire.