A survey on job satisfaction among nursing staff before and after introduction of the NIDCAP model of care in a level III NICU in the Netherlands.

Purpose: To study the effect of introduction of the Newborn Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Program (NIDCAP) on nursing staff job satisfaction.

Subjects: Registered nurses, with specialist neonatal qualifications or in training, in a level III neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in the Netherlands.

Design And Methods: A survey was performed before 2001 and 6 months after (2003) the introduction of NIDCAP as the new model of care. Job satisfaction was measured by means of the Index of Work Satisfaction (IWS) instrument.

Principal Results: From the 74 and 70 nurses on the payroll, who participated in the survey before and after the introduction of NIDCAP, respectively 67.6% and 80% responded. No differences were seen in background variables between both groups. Individual components of the IWS on importance and satisfaction were ranked in the same order before and after the NIDCAP introduction. The results on the IWS demonstrated no change in the overall satisfaction rate, respectively 14.4 and 14.5. Only in 1 component, organizational policies, the mean score increased significantly (3.68 and 4.13, respectively, P = .008). The other component scores did not increase significantly.

Conclusions: Major changes in nursing care practice by means of NIDCAP, on our NICU did not affect overall satisfaction. Scores suggested that nursing staff were persistently satisfied with their job.