THE CORRESPONDENCE OF PATIENT SATISFACTION AND NURSE BURNOUT

This study examined the relationships of nurse burnout, intention to q uit, and meaningfulness of work as assessed on a staff survey with pat ient satisfaction with nursing care, physician care, information provi ded and coordination of care, and outcomes of the hospital stay assess ed post-discharge. Sixteen inpatient units from two hospital sites for med the data base and included 605 patients and 711 nurses. Patients' perceptions of the quality of each of the four care dimensions corresp onded to the relationships nurses had with their work. Patients on uni ts where nurses found their work meaningful were more satisfied with a ll aspects of their hospital stay. Patients who stayed on units where nursing staff felt more exhausted or more frequently expressed the int ention to quit were less satisfied with the various components of thei r care. Although nurse cynicism was reflected in lower patient satisfa ction with interactions with nursing staff, the correlations between c ynicism and other aspects of care fell below statistical significance. No significant correlations were found between nurse professional eff icacy and any of the patient satisfaction components measured. The imp lications of the relationship between patient satisfaction and nurses' perception of their work is discussed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.