Variability, shift‐specific workloads and rationed care predictors of work satisfaction among Registered nurses providing acute care: A longitudinal study

AIMS: The aim of this study was to explore nurses’ shift‐work satisfaction variability across time and its shift‐specific predictors: perceived workload, patient‐to‐nurse ratio and rationing of nursing care. DESIGN: Longitudinal study of 90 Registered nurses (N = 1,303 responses) in a Lebanese hospital over 91 days of data collection. METHODS: Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were computed to determine shift‐work satisfaction variability between individual nurses and working‐unit clusters. Generalized linear mixed models were used to explore the workloads and rationed care predictors of nurses’ shift‐work satisfaction separately for day and night shifts. RESULTS: Variability in shift‐work satisfaction was noted between individual nurses in day (ICC = 0.43) and night shifts (ICC = 0.37), but not between medical/surgical units. Nurses satisfied with their shift‐specific work were less probably to ration necessary nursing care (OR = 0.68; 95% CI = 0.60–0.77) in day shifts and to perceive high workload demands in both, day (OR = 0.29; 95% CI = 0.23–0.37) and night (OR = 0.29; 95% CI = 0.18–0.47) shifts. Monitoring and lowering workload demands while observing rationing of care is necessary to improve nurses’ shift‐work satisfaction.