Flow situations during everyday practice in a medical hospital ward. Results from a study based on experience sampling method

The respondents consisted of 17 assistant nurses and 14 registered nurses, who randomly and repeatedly answered a small questionnaire, through an experience sampling method, during everyday nursing practice. The study resulted in 497 observations. Flow situations were defined as an exact match between a high challenge and skill estimation and logistic regression models were used to study different variables association to flow situations.The health care staff spent most of its working time in individual nursing care and administrative and communicative duties. The assistant nurses were more often occupied in individual nursing care, while the registered nurses were more involved in medical care and administrative and communicative duties. The study resulted in 11.5% observations of flow situations but the relative number of flow situations varied between none to 55% among the participants. Flow situations were positively related to medical care activities and individual cognitive resources. Taking a break was also positively associated with flow situations among the assistant nurses.The result showed opportunities for work-related interventions, with an adherent increase in flow situations, opportunity for experience of flow and work-related health among the nursing staff in general and among the assistant nurses in particular.Nursing can be described as a constant balance between strain and stimulation [1] or stress versus satisfaction [2]. These descriptions can be related to what Csikszentmihalyi [3] calls the paradox of work. According to Csikszentmihalyi [3] work creates opportunities for powerful and enjoyable moments, but is nevertheless something that people often try to avoid. Many registered nurses have reported an intention to leave their nursing job [4,5] and studies of the hospital work environment pointed out problems in work design and management, with adherent work-related dissatisfaction, emotional exhaustion or strain [1,4].It is, according to Kell