MIDLIFE FEMALE NURSES: WORK PATTERNS, GENERAL HEALTH AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING.
Contributors: University Of Illinois At Chicago, Health Sciences Center.
Published: 1984
Number of pages: 201
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The emphasis for past research on the psychological well-being and general health of midlife women has primarily been on menopause and the empty nest. Research that has taken into consideration a woman's work outside of the home has frequently viewed work narrowly as being either present or absent. The present study identified work patterns followed by female nurses now at midlife, as well as their menstrual patterns and empty nest status. The effects of these three variables on general health and psychological well-being and the relationships among them were studied. In addition, the perceived synchrony between the women's work life cycle and family life cycle was examined.

Interviews were conducted with 48 midlife nurses aged 46 to 59 who graduated in the 1950s from one diploma school of nursing. Instrumentation consisted of a semistructured interview and standardized measurements of general health and psychological well-being.

Four work patterns emerged from the data. These included the stable pattern, the interrupted pattern, the unstable pattern, and the double-track pattern. Work pattern, menstrual pattern, and empty nest status showed no significant effect on the measures for general health and psychological well-being. Correlations among the measures revealed high relationships among general health, nervous symptoms, and depression. Analysis of variance for vasomotor symptoms by work pattern and menstrual pattern, controlling for general health, showed significant main effects for work pattern and menstrual pattern and significant interaction effects. Also, analysis of variance for life satisfaction by work pattern and menstrual pattern, controlling for general health, showed a significant main effect for menstrual pattern and significant interaction effects. Women following the interrupted and unstable patterns appeared to be at risk at two points in the course of menopause. Premenopausal women had lower life satisfaction, while postmenopausal women seemed to have more vasomotor symptoms.

A timetable existed for most of the women for the family dimension of their life cycle. However, the work dimension did not have its own timetable, but was dictated primarily by the events occurring within the family dimension. Without an expectable timetable for work, synchrony, the regulatory mechanism between the work life cycle and family life cycle, was not operable. Implications were raised regarding women's values.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, Section: B, page: 1733.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO, HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER, 1984.

School code: 0806.