Occupational Happiness of Civilian Nurses in China: a cross- sectional study

Abstract Background: Civilian nurses have gradually become the main body of military nurses. Their professional well-being is of great significance to the quality of clinical nursing work and the improvement of medical service quality in military hospitals.Methods: This descriptive study was conducted with 319 civilian nurses working in 15 military hospitals in China. Based on the demographic questionnaire and the occupational happiness questionnaire of civilian nurses in military hospitals, the data were analysed by t test, analysis of variance and Pearson correlation analysis.Results: The occupational happiness score (3.83 ± 0.56, upper limit score: 5) was at the upper middle level. There were 233 nurses aged 31-40 (73%) and 258 married nurses (80.9%). A total of 285 nurses had bachelor's degrees (89.3%),166 nurses had the title of chief nurse (52.0%), the working years of 246 nurses were more than 10 years (77.1%), and 207 nurses (64.9%) had a monthly salary of more than 10000 yuan (RMB). There were significant differences in occupational well-being by gender (t = -2.668, p = 0.008), age (F = 5.085, p = 0.007) and the type of city where the hospital was located (F = 15.959, p < 0.0001). The happiness score of females (3.94 ± 0.60) was higher than that of males (3.47 ± 0.54). Nurses who were over 41 years old had the highest occupational happiness. Compared with nurses younger than 30 years old, the p value was 0.004. The occupational happiness of nurses in hospitals in a "prefecture-level city" (p < 0.0001) and a "sub-provincial city" (p < 0.0001) was significantly higher than that of nurses in hospitals in a "municipality directly under the central government". Correlation analysis showed that the higher the nurses’ satisfaction with professional identity, work output, work environment, salary, and interpersonal relationships, the higher their occupational happiness.Conclusion: Nurses who are female and older than 41 years old and whose hospitals are in "prefecture-level city" and "sub-provincial city" have higher occupational happiness. Professional identity, work output, work environment, salary, and interpersonal relationships also affect occupational happiness. The occupational happiness of civilian nurses in Chinese military hospitals is above the medium level, which is an important guarantee of the quality of clinical nursing work and the improvement of medical service quality.