Perceived Barriers and Nurses Job Satisfaction toward Caring Critically Ill Bariatric Patients.

Background: Critical care nurses pursue hardly to provide professional care in safely and concerned manner for bariatric critically ill patients who suffer from a variety of complex physiologic complications. Job satisfaction for ICU nurses is a confounding factor because they are high risk for exposure to several occupational hazards, but they are seeking to achieve high-quality care to those patients. Aim:  This study was intended to explore perceived barriers and job satisfaction for ICU nurses to care for critically ill bariatric patients. Design: Descriptive correlational study design was utilized. Setting(s): This study was recruited in the intensive care units. Participants: A convenience sample of 300 nurses were included. Tool of data collection: An electronic form questionnaire was conduct.  Two tools for data collection. Tool(I): perceived barriers to care critically ill bariatric patient’s questionnaire sheet. Tool (II):  critical care nurses job satisfaction questionnaire. Results: More than half of the studied nurses reported that staff shortage was the uppermost rank of the perceived barrier. It was found that most studied nurses (32%) had low job satisfaction, while 16% of them experienced high very job satisfaction. Also, there was high significant negative correlation between the perceived barrier and job satisfaction presented (r= -0.257& p = <0.001). Conclusions: Critical care nurses experienced lower job satisfaction toward caring for bariatric patients. Our results call for paying more attention to improving nurses' job satisfaction toward caring bariatric patients by overwhelmed obstacles of perceived barriers. Recommendations: Education bariatric caring programs and training courses for critical care nurses about how to identify needs and overcome barriers to care critically ill bariatric patients to help them become more knowledgeable and skilled.