Determination of the Relationship between the Quality of Working Life and Tendency for Continuing Education in the Nurses working in Selected Hospitals of Isfahan Medical University

In the past, the main role of nurses was providing care and comfort during nursing duties. However, today due to the changes in the health-related systems, more emphasis is put on the health promotion, disease prevention, and paying attention to the patient as a whole and considering all of his aspects (holistic care). Therefore, in the current societies, the nurses play a more varied roles and professional responsibilities which are expanding in line with the changes in society. The working life quality is among the important and effective factors on the nurses' productivity. Also, regarding the high sensitivity of the health-care fields which are directly related to the human life, their education, knowledge, and working ability for better performing the duties is vital. The current study aimed at evaluation and investigation of the working life quality on the tendency to continue education in the nurses working in Isfahan Medical University. the current study is of descriptive - cross sectional bivariate correlation type conducted on 123 nurses working in four departments as internal medicine, surgery, emergency and intensive care in five hospitals as Al-Zahra, Amin, Ayatollah Kashani, Noor, and Ali Asghar (pbuh), which were under supervision of Isfahan Medical University. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire including the demographic information, working life quality, job satisfaction, and tendency to continue education. For data analysis, In addition to the descriptive statistical indicators (mean and standard deviation), the Chi Square test was also used for qualitative variables as well as paired sample t-test for comparison between the means of the two groups. All the analysis were performed in SPSS with the significance level 0.05. there is significant relationship between the nurses' education and their working life quality however there were no relationships between the years in service and marital status with people working life quality. Also, there were no significant differences between the male and female nurses in terms of working life quality (p=0.45). The single nurses, compared to the married ones, had more tendency for continuing the education. However, there were no significant relationships between the nurses' gender, age, years in service, and education with their tendency to continue education. Fourteen male nurses (29.2%) and twenty six female nurses (34.4%) intended to continue their educational in their own field and seventeen male nurses (35.4%) and twenty one female nurses (28%) intended to continue their education in a field other than their own field. The rest of the nurses did not intend to continue education. There is a direct and consistent relationship between working life quality and tendency to continue education.