Professional Values, Social Support, and Quality of Work Life of Professional Nurses in Public Health Centers, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration

Abstract

This cross-sectional study aimed at assessing levels of quality of work life, professional values, and social support of professional nurses working in public health centers, Bangkok Metropolitan Admin-istration, including finding relationships between individual characteristics, professional values, social support and quality of work life of professional nurses in public health centers, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. Data population were 845 professional nurses working in the public health centers, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. Data were collected by using questionnaires. The response rate was 74.3%. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse data and Multiple Linear Regression was used to find the relationships between individual characteristics, professional values, social support and quality of work life. The findings revealed that approximately half of the professional nurses working in the public health centers, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, had overall quality of work life at a good level 56.7%, overall professional values at a good level 97.8%, and overall social support at a moderate level 55.4%. Work experience, professional values, autonomy, respect toward human dignity, and social support in the aspects of instrumental, informational, and appraisal support were related to the quality of work life of those professional nurses with statistical significance (p<0.05). Factors predicting their quality of work life at 56.6% (R 2 adj=0.566) were appraisal support, autonomy, instrumental support, informational support, respect toward human dignity, and work experience. From the research findings, the executives should provide and give importance to developing and building work-life balance, give autonomy to the profes-sional nurses in making decisions and promoting the professional nurses to perceive important professional values useful to nursing operations.