Thesis

instructions from their supervisors and that other nurse colleagues were committed to the
hospital organization. Lastly, a minority of the nurses mentioned to have access to
information in order to be able to perform their work-related responsibilities.
Hansen, Sverke & Näswall (2009) looked into the area of hospital ownership and burnout at
three different Swedish emergency hospitals. More specifically they wanted to look at
different factors in 1102 nurses’ psychosocial work-related environment associated with
hospital ownership and to look at the levels of burnout in connection to these different factors.
Ownership in this study was divided into three different groups, namely private for-profit
hospital, private non-profit hospital, and a publicly run hospital. The researchers put forward
four research questions which they wanted to look into and in those the researchers expected
the levels of burnout to be higher the more commercialized the ownership of a hospital was,
the job demands levels and job resources levels to be higher the more commercialized the
ownership of a hospital was, increased burnout levels to be associated with high levels of job
demands, and finally decreased burnout levels to be associated with occurrence of job
resources. When it comes to expected levels of burnout the more commercialized a hospital
was, it was shown that highest levels of burnout among the nurses could be found in the
private for-profit hospital and lowest levels of burnout could be found in the public hospitals.
When it comes to job demands, the researchers showed that this factor was not increased in
proportion to the commercial ownership level of a hospital. When it comes to burnout
connected to job demands and job resources, it was shown that burnout was most significantly
related to job demands and that job resources were generally associated with decreased levels
of burnout.
Nilsson, Hertting, Petterson & Theorell (2005) investigated which possible predictions could
be made concerning work-related environment at a hospital ward in Sweden. When it comes
to the results, one of the major findings in this research was that the nurses mentioned the
positive aspects of belonging to a small ward. Since the ward where the nurses were working
was a small one, the nurses mentioned that it was much easier for them to get to know their
colleagues and to feel loyalty towards their nursing colleagues. It was also shown in the study
that decreased job satisfaction related to colleagues was connected to increased levels of
short-term sick leave. Looking at the management, the nurses reported positively in
connection to them. They reported managers to give them opportunities for extending their
knowledge at work and to empower them, and thus learning played an important role at the