Obvious and hidden anxiety and quality of working life among nurses in educational hospitals

Objective (s): Anxiety is one of the critical issues of working life in health system, which can result in poor quality of working life, quality of work and health problems. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between obvious and hidden anxiety and quality of working life of nurses in educational hospitals. This descriptive-cross sectional study was performed on 654 nurses of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. A questionnaire was used to collect the data. The questionnaire included three parts: demographic information‚ items on obvious and hidden anxiety (Spielburger), and the Quality of Work Life questionnaire. Data were analyzed using using descriptive statistics and inferential non-parametric tests including Mann-Whitney, Kruskal Wallis and Spearman test. The state and trait among the nurses was at a moderate to a high level. The level of state anxiety was higher than trait anxiety. The result also showed that quality of life among nurses was moderate. The Pearson correlation test showed a significant negative relationship between quality of work life and nurses’ anxiety (P 0.001). The results showed that there was a meaningful statistical relationship between the state anxiety and having a second job (P= 0.006), number of children (P=0.05). In addition, there was a meaningful statistical relationship between the trait anxiety and having second job (P=0.01), genetic variant (P=0.04), marital status (P=0.02). Moreover, there was a significant correlation between the different dimensions of quality of life with employment status (P=0.03), second job (P=0.01), and car ownership (P=0.005). Decreased state and trait anxiety were associated with increased quality of work life. It seems that in order to improve quality of nursing services there is need to adopt appropriate strategies to reduce anxiety in the workplace.