Abstract

Nurses are faced with a lot of responsibilities, at work and home. This gives rise to work-family conflict. There are several factors which could affect work-family conflict. This study identifies specific job characteristics and their influence on work-family conflict among nurses working in the teaching hospitals in Anambra State. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study, as a proportionate sampling technique was used to select 257 nurses from the two teaching hospitals in Anambra State. The instrument for data collection was work-family conflict instrument, and Work-design questionnaire which was adopted, modified and revalidated. The data generated was statistically analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis and Spearman correlation with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 23. Results stated that high level of work-family conflict was reported by nurses. Average number of patients served per day and workload influenced work-family conflict positively with a p-value of 0.044 and 0.00, respectively. Workload and average number of patient served per shift are the job characteristics that influence work-family conflict. Therefore, workload of nurses should be analyzed critically and the review of nurses workload for further adjustments so as to increase their productivity both at work and home.

Key words: Job characteristics, work-family conflict, workload, job autonomy, Nigeria, Anambra State.