Qom University of Medical Sciences Journal

With the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, nurses were in the front line of patient care. They not only faced an increase in the amount and intensity of work, but also were have to follow strict protective protocols in their work environments. Intensive and long-term work shifts, direct contact with the infected patients, having limitations to see the family, and wearing masks and other protective equipment can affect their provided patient care. Social well-being, along with physical and mental health, is one of the important elements of healthy and quality work life. Social health and its related factors are important in nurses. Nurses with higher social well-being provide better nursing care to patients and can cope with the challenges of playing their social roles more successfully. They have more stability and cohesion and participate effectively in group activities at work with their coworkers. Although many studies have been conducted on the importance of social well-being in health workers to maintain their health during stressful events, there is no evidence of the social well-being status of Iranian nurses and its predictors, especially during the pandemic. The present study, therefore, aims to determine the social well-being status and its related factors in nurses working in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods
Nurses were invited online to participate in the study on Telegram and WhatsApp. Entry criteria were a bachelor’s degree in nursing or higher, at least 6 months of work experience as a nurse in hospitals, and not experiencing stressful events (death of loved ones, illness, divorce, etc.) during the last 6 months. The data was collected from January to February 2021. The participants were asked to answer the questions online. After completion, 617 questionnaires were returned. Those with incomplete data were excluded. Finally, the data of 612 questionnaires were used in the analysis.
The data collection tool was a two-part questionnaire. The first part surveyed the nurses’ demographic characteristics and the second part was Keyes’ social well-being scale (SWBS) with 28 items and five dimensions of social coherence (5 items), social integration (8 items), social contribution (5 items), social actualization (8 items), and social acceptance (3 items). Scoring was based on a five-point Likert scale ranged from 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree. Accordingly, the total score ranged 28-140. Higher indicated better social well-being. In this study, the internal consistency of the instrument was obtained 0.76. Data were described by descriptive statistics (Frequencies, mean, and standard deviation) and analyzed by multiple linear regression analysis in SPSS software, version 20 software. The significance level was set at 0.05.
Results
The mean age and work experience of nurses was 35.5±7.6 and 11.7±7.2 years, respectively. Most of the nurses were female (63.1%) and married (74.8%) with a bachelor’s degree (82.4%). Most of them (84.5%) had clinical tasks. The mean total SWBS score of nurses was 74.1±9.5 out of 140. Multiple linear regression analysis results showed that age (P=0.04, β=-0.95); gender (P=0.01, β=0.1) and type of employment (P=0.03, β=-0.1) were the predictors of nurses’ social well-being. Other demographic and job-related factors were not effective.
Discussion
The social well-being status of Iranian nurses working in hospitals during the pandemic is relatively favorable. Female nurses, older nurses, and nurses with temporary employment status had poor well-being. The increase in educational level and age and the specialization of available services through the promotion of organizational duties can be helpful in improving the social well-being of nurses. In addition, changing the employment status of the nurses from temporary to permanent can increase their social well-being. Supporting nurses’ mental and social health is necessary to maintain and improve their social well-being and consequently improve the provision of care services to patients. Adopting effective strategies to improve the working conditions, adjusting work shifts, supplying the required manpower, and reducing the working hours of nurses, which causes their more presence with family and friends, can improve the integrity and coherence of their social well-being.
Ethical Considerations
Compliance with ethical guidelines
This study was conducted in the Research Center for Social Factors Affecting Health with the financial support of the Deputy of Research and Technology and with the approval of the Research Ethics Committee of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR.ZUMS.REC.1399.373).
Funding
This study was done with the financial support of the Research and Technology Vice-Chancellor of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences.
Authors contributions
All authors contributed equally in preparing all parts of the research.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
We appreciate all the nurses participating in this study.