Latent profiles of nurses' subjective well-being and its association with social support and professional self-concept

Abstract

Aim: To identify latent profiles of nurses' subjective well-being (SWB) and explore its association with social support and professional self-concept.

Design: This study used an online survey and cross-sectional latent profile analysis design.

Methods: A total of 1009 nurses from 30 hospitals in Guangdong Province, China, were selected using convenience sampling. An online questionnaire survey comprising the following scales was distributed: Index of Well-Being, Nurses' Professional Self-concept Questionnaire and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Nurses' SWB was examined and categorized into profiles using nine Index of Well-being items as explicit variables and ordinal logistic regression analysis was performed to explore factors related to the distinct categories.

Results: Nurses' SWB was divided into four latent profiles: extremely low, low, moderate and high. Regression analysis showed that social support and professional self-concept influenced SWB. There were statistically significant differences in age, title, working years, social support and professional self-concept among nurses in the different well-being categories. Ordered logistic regression analysis showed that social support and professional self-concept are associated with different SWB profiles.

Keywords: latent profile analysis; nurses; professional self‐concept; social support; subjective well‐being.