Leadership, adequate staffing and material resources, and collegial nurse-physician relationships promote better patients, professionals and institutions outcomes.

AIM: To test a theoretical model aiming to understand which characteristics of the professional nursing practice environment most affect patients, professionals and institution outcomes. DESIGN: A cross-sectional and correlational study, using a structural equation model. METHODS: One thousand seven hundred and seventy-three staff nurses were recruited using convenience sampling in five Brazilian hospitals from November 2017 to July 2018. Structural equation modelling was used to assess the relationship between the characteristics of the nursing work environment and patients (climate of safety and quality of care), nursing professionals (job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion) and institutions (intention to leave the job) outcomes. The model was tested using the partial least squares method, considering the bootstrapping technique to estimate the results. The path coefficients and their respective 95% confidence intervals were calculated. The quality of fit of the structural model was assessed by calculating the coefficient of determination (R2 ), the predictive validity coefficient (Q2 ) and the effect size (f2 ). RESULTS: The characteristics that most affected the outcomes for patients were Nurse manager ability, leadership and support of nurses (λ=0.27), and Staffing and resource adequacy (λ=0.26); for nursing professionals, Staffing and resource adequacy (λ=-0.19), and Collegial nurse-physician relations (λ=0.19); and for institutions, Nurse manager ability, leadership and support of nurses (λ=-0.10), and Collegial nurse-physician relations (λ=-0.10). CONCLUSION: The characteristics of the professional nursing practice environment that most contribute to achieving better outcomes include nurse manager ability, leadership and support of nurses, staffing and resource adequacy, and collegial nurse-physician relations. IMPACT: This study allowed us to assess which strategies should be prioritized in the professional nursing practice environment to achieve better results. Thus, investment in the training of leadership, in the adequacy of resources, and in physician-nurse relations will bring better results for patients, nursing professionals, and institutions.