Sammanfattning
Nursing in Finland, as in many western countries, has suffered from excessive productivity improvement efforts for the last 15 years. During the first years of the 21st century the trend was even worsening, causing the nursing staff to become very worried about the situation and to challenge Finnish Nurses Association (FNA) to be active. The purpose of this paper is to report and assess the descriptive results of a cross-sectional survey conducted in the spring of 2004 with the aim of gaining knowledge about the working conditions of Finnish RNs. The RN Working Conditions Barometry Index form (RN-WCBI) for RNs in clinical work that was developed for the study aimed to gather an account of RNs' satisfaction in terms of their working conditions, consisting of their opportunity to influence, workload, staffing, job description, managerial and collegial support. A nationally representative random sample of 1192 RNs was surveyed. The most problematic factors of working conditions were excessive workloads with high patient-to-RN ratios, the broad description of RNs' work, limited possibilities to influence, and a lack of managerial support. The rates of adverse events for patients and for nurses were described. Finnish RNs' critical evaluations of their working conditions give direction to the management and leadership of health care and to health policy making