The quality of life and readiness of Polish nurses to take new competences of drug prescribing

Satisfaction with life in the case of nurses is closely related to their professional work and is an important factor affecting the quality of work and patient care. An analysis of the readiness of Polish nurses depending on the level of life satisfaction. The study was conducted from January to November 2016 in randomly selected 13 health care facilities and 756 nurses in the South-Eastern part of Poland. The study used the satisfaction with life scale and the author's questionnaire. Nearly 75% of the nurses surveyed declared (reported) a low and average level of satisfaction. The level of satisfaction significantly influenced the readiness of nurses to administer medicines and write prescriptions. Nurses who had a higher level of life satisfaction were also more prepared to prescribe foodstuffs for particular nutritional uses (rho = 0.095, P = .0092), medical devices (rho = 0.117, P = .0012), potent drugs (rho = 0.138, P = .0001), intoxicants (rho = 0.078, P = .0311), and psychotropic drugs (rho = 0.085, P = .0196). Nurses who had a higher level of life satisfaction were also more prepared to administer medicines, especially foodstuffs for particular nutritional uses, medical devices, potent drugs, narcotic drugs, and psychotropic drugs.