Work environment for hospital nurses in Japan: The relationships between nurses' perceptions of their work environment and nursing outcomes.

Aim: To investigate nurses' perceptions of their work environment and to investigate the relationships between variables measuring the work environment (WE) and nursing outcomes (NO ).

Design: A 2-year prospective longitudinal survey (2013-2015).

Method(s): Descriptive statistics of nurse demographics, organizational WE and NOs were calculated by position. The associations between Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) and NOs were examined for each unit.

Results: The participants were 2,992 staff nurses, 137 nurse managers (NMs), and 8 chief nursing officers in Phase 1 and 7,849, 371 and 23 in Phase 2, respectively. The higher the job position, the better the WE was rated. The higher the PES-NWI scores, the better the outcomes. Descriptive statistics about organizational WEs and NOs and the statistically significant associations between the two were identified.