Background: Nursing as a profession exhibits high levels of work-related stress and psychosocial disorders. Daily, nurses face job-related ethical challenges, high job stress and risk of burnout. Emotional distress, lack of support from the employer, bad working and employment conditions contribute to illness and sickness. To retain nurses and to reduce negative trends of stress-related psychosocial disorders, it is important to explore nurses’ experiences on work-related health.
Purpose of study: To explore nurses’ experiences of work-related health in Swedish context.
Methods/Theory: A qualitative study design. 13 in-depth interviews with nurses were analyzed with qualitative content analysis applying an inductive approach.
Findings: As the main category, we identified “Nurses’ health and job satisfaction are affected by the quality of organizational and collegial support and the opportunities that facilitate recovery, health and the care”. Four generic categories were found; 1) “Work environment and organizational support as reasons for reduced recovery”; 2) “Competence opportunities, supervision and time for reflection for health and job satisfaction”; 3) “Work variation, collegial support, and feedback from patients for better health and care”; and 4) “Social network and physical activities for better recovery”.