Environmental Psychology Effects on Mental Health Job Satisfaction and Personal Well Being of Nurses
Abstract
Objective: Environmental psychology as a science could be useful in understanding the dissociation between the man and the environment. The aim of this study was to compare mental health, job satisfaction and well-being of nurses who work in hospital environments with different designs.
Material: This was a quasi-experimental study, in which 250 nurses filled out the mental health, well-being and job satisfaction questionnaires. They were categorized into 3 groups randomly. Group1 included 63 nurses who worked in an environment without any natural elements; group 2 included 100 nurses who worked in an environment with natural elements and group 3 included 87 nurses who worked in an environment without any psychological and ergonomic design. The last group was only stimulated by demonstrating visual stimulus. Data were analyzed using the ANOVA and Tukey’s pursuit statistical method.
Results: The nurses who were working in an environment without any natural elements reported significantly lower scores on mental health, well-being and job satisfaction compared to those who were working in other groups, with the exception of social functioning .Moreover, depression and anxiety were more common in nurses who were working in environments without any natural elements compared to those in the other groups (p<0.05).
Conclusions: We can increase job satisfaction, and mental health and well-being of the nurses through the use of natural design and environmental psychology indexes in hospital buildings.
Brown T, Morgue B. Off the Couch and the Move: Global public health and the medication of nature. Social Science &Medicine 2007; 64: 1343-1354.
Gifford R. Environmental psychology and sustainable development: Expansion, maturation, and challenges. Journal of Social Issues 2007; 63: 199–212.
Gesler W, Bell M, Curtis S, Hubbard P, Francis S. Therapy by design: evaluating the UK hospital building program. Health & Place 2004; 10: 117–128 .
Levi D, Kocher S, Aboud R. Technological disasters in natural and built environments. Environment and Behavior 2001; 33: 78-92.
Moore DW. Energy crisis: Americans lean toward conservation over production. The Gallup Poll Monthly 2001; 428: 14-15.
Cohen DE, Brooks-Gunn J, Eventual T, Hertz man C. Neighborhood income and physical and social disorder in Canada: associations with young children’s competencies. Child Development 2002; 73: 1844–1860.
Ryff CD, Keyes CLM. The structure of psychological wellbeing revisited. Journal of personality and social psychology 2002: 69: 719-727 .
Keyes CLM, Shapiro AD. Social well being in the united states: A descriptive epidemiology. Forthcoming in Orville Brim, Midlife in united states, university of Chicago press; 2001.
Dreary A. Impact of our built environmental. Public Health Jubal of Environmental Health Perspectives 2004; 104.
Butter worth I. The Relationship Between the Built Environment and Well Being 2000.
Sudagar S. [Job satisfaction rate of employed nurses in hospitals of Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences in 2002]. Hormozgan Medical Journal 2003; 8.
Hemati Maslak Pak M. [Assessment of Anxiety Level of Employed Formal Nurses in Hospitals of Urmia University of Medical Sciences]. Journal of Urmia Nursing And Midwifery Faculty 2006, 3.
Gellman M, Turner JR. Introducing the Official Journal of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies: Applied Research in Quality of Life. Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine Journal; 2012.
Hoseini MA, Kakoii H, Shah Zeidi Sh. Dibaii M. [Effect of continuous quality improvement of education on knowledge, attitudes and job satisfaction]. Iranian Nursing 2006; 1.
Mirzabeigi Gh, Salemi S, Sanjari M, Shirazi F, Heidari Sh, Maleki S. Job Satisfaction among Iranian Nurses. Hayat 2009; 15: 49- 59.
Walsh M, Knott JC. Satisfaction with the emergency department environment decreases with length of stay. Emerge Med 2010; 27: 821-828.
Moos H, Insel PM. Increase work environment productivity and satisfaction, Work Environment Journal 2006; 22: 11-12.
Evans GW. The built environment and mental health. Journal of Urban Health, 2003; 80: 536-555.
Kaplan R. Environment and Behavior, eab.sagepub.com; 2001.
Davidson J. Fear and trembling in the mall: women, Agoraphobia, and body boundaries, In I. Dyck ND, Lewis SMc Lafferty, Eds, Geographies of women’s health, 2001; 3: 213–230.
Perrins-Margalis NM, Rugletic J, Schepis NM, Stepanski HR and Walsh MA. The immediate effects of a group-based horticulture experience on the quality of life of persons with chronic mental illness. Occupational Therapy in Mental Health 2000; 16: 15-31 .
Kuo, F., Fable, V., Taylor, A. Children with attention deficits concentrate better after walk in the park. J Atten Disord 2009; 12: 402-409.
Pillow, M. Ecological psychology, Environmental health; 1999.
Velarde MD, Fry G, tveit M. Health effects of viewing Landscapes- Landscape types in environmental Psychology. Urban Frosty & Urban Greening 2007; 6: 199-212.
Gifford R. Environmental Psychology: principles and practice. 1st Edn. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.1987.
McDowell, Christoper Forrest and Tricia Clark-McDowell. The Sanctuary Garden. Simon & Schuster. New York. 1998.
Fillion L, Tremblay I, Truchon M, Coˆte´ D, Struthers W, Dupuis R. Job satisfaction and emotional distress among nurses providing palliative care: empirical evidence for an integrative occupational stress-model. Int J Stress Manage 2007; 14:1–25.
Goldberg DP, Hillier VF. A scaled version of general health questionnaire. Psychol Med. 1979; 9:131.
Ganji H. Mental Health. Ed Tehran: Arasbaran publishers; 2000 .
Noorbala AA, Mohammad K, Bagheri Yazdi S. A, et al. Validation of GHQ–28 in Iran. Hakim Magazine. 1999; 5: 101– 110.
Saane N, Van M, Sluiter JK, Verbeek JHAM, Frings- Dresen MHW. Reliability and validity of instruments measuring job satisfaction-a systematic review. Occupational Medicine 2003; 53: 191-200.
Haghayegh Khorasani B. [The measurement of work stress and stress and examination of its effect on job satisfaction and mental health of employees and workers in a pharmaceutical company]. the thesis of M.A in Tehran University. 2008.
Aghayousefi A. [Comparison of stress and its consequences on families and martyr in Qom province]. Employer research project: The Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs in Qom. 2004.
Park S, Mattson RH Kim E. Pain tolerance effects of ornamental plants in a simulated hospital patient room. Acted Horticulture 2004; 639: 241-247.
Files | ||
Issue | Vol 10 No 3 (2015) | |
Section | Articles | |
Keywords | ||
Environmental Psychology Mental Health Job Satisfaction Well-being Nurses |
Rights and permissions | |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |