How Positive Psychosocial Work Factors may Promote Self-Efficacy and Mental Health among Psychiatric Nurses

Most research on workplace health promotion has focused on modifying lifestyles and preventing disease, and not so much on how the workplace itself affects positive health measures. This cross-sectional study investigated the relationships between psychosocial work factors and psychiatric nurses’ health, measured as generalised selfefficacy, caring efficacy and mental health. A specific objective was to investigate whether the work factors correlated differently with the different health measures, and whether efficacy mediated the effect of work factors on mental health. Both personal control and social support correlated positively with the two efficacy measures. Social support was a more important predictor of caring efficacy than control. Control was the most important psychosocial work factor positively associated with the psychiatric nurses’ mental health. Both efficacy measures correlated positively with mental health, but neither mediated the effect of the psychosocial work factors on mental health.