Professional nursing practice in critical units: assessment of work environment characteristics.

Objective: assess the autonomy, control over environment, and organizational support of nurses' work process and the relationships between physicians and nurses in critical care units.

Method: cross-sectional study conducted with 162 nurses working in the intensive care units and emergency service of a university hospital. The workers' satisfaction with their work environment was assessed using Brazilian Nursing Work Index - Revised, translated and adapted for the Brazilian culture.

Results: average age was 31.6 ± 3.9 years; 80.2% were women; 68.5% Caucasians and 71.6% worked in intensive care units. The nurses considered autonomy (2.38 ± 0.64) and their relationship with physicians (2.24 ± 0.62) to be characteristics of the work environment that favored professional practice. Control over environment (2.78 ± 0.62) and organizational support (2.51 ± 0.54), however, were considered to be unfavorable. No statistically significant differences were found between the units based on the scores obtained by the professionals on the Brazilian Nursing Work Index - Revised.

Conclusion: autonomy, relationship between physicians and nurses, and organizational support were considered by the units to be characteristics that favored nurses' professional practices. On the other hand, control over environment and organizational support were considered unfavorable.