Corporate Wellbeing and Professional Quality of Life: An Imperative in Nursing Occupational Health

Abstract

This November, the Spanish Association of Occupational Health Nursing presented its Corporate Wellbeing Manual, which proposes a renewed framework to promote occupational health nursing as a key agent in fostering corporate wellbeing, integrating health, safety, and productivity from a strategic, evidence-based perspective. This editorial, from the European Journal of Occupational Health Nursing, serves to endorse this latest achievement for Spanish occupational health nursing.

In today's world, characterized by constant acceleration, increasing job demands, and precariousness in some healthcare settings, corporate well-being emerges as an essential pillar for sustaining the professional quality of life of nursing staff.

In the context of occupational health nursing, promoting a healthy work environment is not only an ethical issue but also a strategic one: a well-cared-for workforce directly impacts the safety, productivity, and sustainability of the healthcare system. The professional quality of life (ProQOL) of nurses encompasses both positive aspects—such as compassion satisfaction—and negative aspects—such as compassion fatigue, burnout, or secondary traumatic stress. Recent studies have shown that many nurses operate with moderate to high levels of emotional exhaustion and compassion fatigue, which jeopardizes their mental health and their ability to provide optimal care (1). 

A multicenter study conducted in Spain analyzed the professional quality of life of more than 1,500 nurses, finding that levels of burnout and compassion fatigue were high, while compassion satisfaction was below the estimated average (2).