Head nurse leadership style with staff nurse burnout and job satisfaction in neonatal intensive care units.

Leadership style has been defined as a two-factor construct composed of "consideration" and "initiating structure." Research has suggested that these factors affect the behavior and attitude of subordinates. This study's purpose was to quantify the relationships of head nurse leadership style with self-reported staff nurse burnout and job satisfaction in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs). Three instruments--the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, the Tedium Scale, and the Leadership Opinion Questionnaire--were voluntarily completed by 283 registered nurses employed by 14 level-III NICUs in the United States. The leadership dimensions of consideration and structure were distinct (r = -.10). Staff nurse satisfaction and burnout were related (r = -.41). Head nurse consideration was clearly related to staff nurse satisfaction (r = -.55) and to a lesser extent to burnout (r = -.29). Initiating structure alone was not related to satisfaction or burnout. Aggregate perceptions of head nurse leadership were ranked across NICUs in order to classify the head nurses on consideration and structure. The 14 head nurses were separated into four groups: high consideration-high structure, high consideration-low structure, low consideration-high structure, and low consideration-low structure. Satisfaction and burnout of staff nurses in each of the leadership-style groups were then compared. Analysis of variance for satisfaction (F(3,279) = 3.10, p = .03) and burnout (F(3,279) = 3.90, p = .01) were both significant. For both satisfaction and burnout, the head nurse leadership classification of low consideration-high structure was most deviant.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Measurement of the nurse organizational climate of neonatal intensive care units.

The concept of organizational climate is important for the study and understanding of work organizations. Researchers have not yet studied the organizational climate of hospital intensive care units, so it is not clear that the dimensions useful in description of other work settings will be appropriate for conceptualizing neonatal intensive care units (NICU's). This study investigated nurse perceptions of the organizational climate of NICU's in a sample of 18 hospitals. The Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire was modified for use in the NICU setting. A set of homogeneous climate scales was developed from the revised instrument. The six scales of the resulting instrument, the Nursing Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire, Form B (NOCDQ-B), demonstrated median internal-consistency reliability of .69 on cross-validation. Analysis of variance indicated that each of the six NOCDQ-B dimensions served to differentiate the NICU's in the study. Further, significant relationships were found at the unit mean level between three of the six NOCDQ-B scales and nurse satisfaction, as measured by the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire.

Staff nurse turnover in neonatal intensive care units.

The turnover rate and patterns in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) were assessed and compared with adult Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and General Infant Care Units at the same hospitals for the year 1976. Thirty-five hospitals with NICUs participated in the study. The findings of this study disagree with the previous literature in three major ways: 1 The turnover rate of staff nurses was less than half that estimated by The National Commission on Nursing for 1970. 2 The turnover rates in ICUs and NICUs were not significantly higher than that for staff nurses in Non-Intensive Care Units. In addition, the pattern of turnover among leavers is identical for all three major types of unit. The variability pattern for neonatal units, however, is statistically significant; this is not so with the other units studied. 3 There is no evidence for a stabilization of turnover following the usual 'induction crisis period' (the first 3 to 6 months).