Objective

To evaluate factors associated with the quality of life of intensive care nurses.

Methods

Cross-sectional, exploratory, descriptive study developed in three intensive care units of a public hospital of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, between January and May 2013. The study sample consisted of 40 nurses. Two questionnaires were applied: sociodemographic and WHOQOL-bref. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, minimum, maximum and 0-100 score).

Results

90% of the participants were females (n=36), of whom 50% were aged between 25 and 30 years (n=20) and 50% single (n=20). 62.5% of them did not have children (n=25) and 60% had a workload of more than 44 hours per week (n=24). Regarding their understanding about quality of life (QoL), 22.5% stated that they felt "bad" in relation to health satisfaction, and 27.5% said they were "dissatisfied". As for the domains of QoL, the following scores were obtained: physical (63.04); psychological (65.44); social relations (62.71) and environment (52.73).

Conclusion

These results show that intensive care nurses obtained less satisfactory scores in the domains of QoL evaluated by the WHOQOL-bref, mainly in the domains of social relations and environment.