Background

Hospital ethical climate (HEC) has been associated with nurses' interprofessional collaboration, moral decision-making and judgment, job satisfaction, and job burnout.

Objectives

This study aimed to examine the effect of hospitals' ethical climate on nurses' quality of working life.

Methods

A cross-sectional study design was employed and 286 nurses from two hospitals in Athens participated in the study from January to February 2020. The data collected using a three-part self-administrated questionnaire were analyzed using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences 25 (SPSS).

Results

According to the results, the staff nurses working on rotating shifts reported poorer Work-Related Quality of Life (WrQoL). Positive correlations were observed between age, control at work, and home–work interface, between the period of time the nurses were working in a specific department with the dimensions of the ethical climate scale, and between almost all the HEC aspects with WRQoL subscales. Only the domain of stress at work had fewer and less significant correlations.

Conclusions

Health authorities and hospital managers should provide the necessary ground for the institutionalization of professional ethics by creating an appropriate ethical climate. A positive ethical climate may lead to a better working environment with less distress for health professionals and better quality of care for the patients.