Public health nurses' quality of worklife: responses to organizational changes

The Nursing Division of a local health unit in Ontario reorganized its nursing teams into target population based programs. Nurses involved in this reorganization were asked to report their perceptions of job satisfaction, job design and role stress using standardized instruments before the reorganization and at three points in time after the reorganization. No administratively significant differences in these variables were reported by the nurses through the four time periods. The one exception was an unpredicted decrease in their perception of their task identity, that is, their perception of the significance or importance of their work. Major changes in the organization of a nursing division may be possible with minimal impact on perceptions of job satisfaction, job design and role stress. We caution that further assessment of the measurement tools used in this study should be undertaken.