Determining the characteristics of a mental supportive workplace according to female hospital staff in one of Tehran hospitals

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Health-care workers are exposed to complex types of health and safety hazards. A high percentage of hospital staff in Iran are women, who in addition to heavy and stressful hospital work, also carry the burden of the family roles. It is in these circumstances that creating a supportive environment for women is of particular importance. Accordingly, this study is designed to determine the characteristics of a mental supporting work environment in the workplace from the perspective of female hospital staff. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was performed by a qualitative method and content analysis approach. Sampling was purposive and 26 women working in different wards of this hospital were included in the study. In this study, women with maximum diversity in terms of age, work experience, and employment ward were selected. The main method of data collection in this study was a semi-structured interview. Interview texts were extracted and divided into meaningful units. To validate and confirm the results plus accuracy of the research, the criterion of data validity or data credibility, admissibility, data accuracy, verifiability, reliability, and transferability were used. RESULTS: Through the data analysis, 58 primary concepts with the same features were classified into 10 subcategories. Then, based on common features at a more abstract level, they were converted into four main categories including job stressors, women's stress management, providing women's psychological-job satisfaction, and women's work-life balance. CONCLUSION: Creating supportive work environments for women, especially those operating in workplaces such as hospitals, which brings a lot of work pressure and workload for them, can be an important policy for organizations and hospital work environments.

Determining the Characteristics of a Healthy Environment Promoting the Health of Women Working in the Hospital: A Qualitative Study

“…This study showed that one of the important factors that could have a signi cant impact on promoting women's health in workplaces was their active participation in the development of programs and policies related to women's health. The presence of women in managerial positions is important for creating a healthy workplace for women, and their cooperation and participation in the formulation of policies and programs related to occupational health and safety can help managers understand the issues and problems faced by women, and also a representative of all groups, especially gender groups, should be present in health and safety related to committees so that a healthy workplace can be prepared for both sexes [14]. Therefore, as discussed in this study, studies also suggest that women's health can be seen in the vision and policy statements of various organizations and workplaces and can help create healthy workplaces.…”

“…Creating the supportive work environments for women, especially those working in environments like hospitals that bring a lot of work pressure and workload for them, can be one of the important policies for organizations and hospital work environments [14]. Working in medical centers can be exhausting.…”

“…The reliability or consistency of the ndings was ensured by typing and analyzing the interviews as soon as possible, using the opinion of colleagues specialized in qualitative research and experts in the eld of health promotion in the workplace, and rereading the entire data. The conveyance was also made possible by the provision of many direct quotations and data-rich explanations [14].…”

“…Then the codes were sorted into subgroups and categories by comparing their similarities and differences. In the end, the main class in which the subgroups were placed, expressed the content and concepts hidden in the texts [14].…”

Exploring drivers of women’s well-being in hospitals: mapping the landscape

“…Subsequently, codes were organized into sub-categories by assessing their relevance. The final step included grouping sub-categories into key categories [ 20 ].…”