A comparison of working conditions among nurses in Magnet and non-Magnet hospitals

To compare working conditions (ie, schedule, job demands, and practice environment) of nurses working in American Nurses Credentialing Center-designated Magnet and non-Magnet hospitals.

Although nurse retention has been reported as more favorable among Magnet hospitals, controversy still exists on whether Magnet hospitals have better working conditions.

A secondary data analysis was conducted of the Nurses Worklife and Health Study using responses from the 837 nurses working in 171 hospitals: 14 Magnet and 157 non-Magnet facilities in the Wave 3 follow-up survey. Contingency tables and t tests compared working conditions by Magnet status. To accommodate clustering of nurses in hospitals, the Huber-White sandwich estimator was used to obtain robust SEs and variance estimates.

Nurses in Magnet hospitals were significantly less likely to report jobs that included mandatory overtime (P =.04) or on-call (P =.01), yet hours worked did not differ. They also reported significantly lower physical demands (P =.03), although the means for Magnet hospital nurses and non-Magnet nurses were quite similar (30.1 vs 31.0). Furthermore, comparison of the groups on nursing practice environment and perceived patient safety found no significant differences.

Working conditions reported by nurses working in Magnet and non-Magnet hospitals varied little.