Work-family and family-work conflicts amongst African nurses caring for patients with AIDS

South African nursing environments are marked by various incapacitating stressors. This study explores work-family (W-F) and family-work (F-W) conflicts as aspects of stress amongst nurses working with patients who have AIDS.

The study sought to determine the value of W-F and F-W conflicts as predictors of work and family satisfaction, as well as turnover intentions and the moderating role of supervisor and significant other support, amongst nurses caring for patients with AIDS in public hospitals within the Capricorn and Mopani districts, Limpopo Province.

The study used a cross-sectional design, with data collected at one point only. Ninety-one nursing staff provided the data for the study by completing structured, self-administered surveys. Analysis involved computing correlations of all study variables. Thereafter, associated variables were used as predictors. In each predictive analysis, the nurses' stress served as a control variable, W-F and F-W conflicts were the independent variables and significant others and supervisor supports were moderators. Interaction terms were derived from independent and moderator variables.

Although the findings of the study were not generally supportive of the hypotheses advanced, they nevertheless showed, amongst other findings, that F-W conflict predicted work satisfaction whilst W-F conflict predicted turnover intentions. Moreover, significant other support had a direct effect on family satisfaction whilst supervisor support moderated reports of W-F conflict and experiences of work satisfaction.

The study showed that inter-role models that appear to be established in the context of developed societies require some further investigations in South Africa.