This dissertation study will analyze previously collected qualitative data concerning staff work life in a 155-bed metropolitan regional medical rehabilitation hospital, the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, an affiliate of the Detroit Medical Center. The institute is large, with a staff of 600, who treat 2,000 inpatients and 7,500 outpatients annually. The project seeks to understand how the working environment of the medical rehabilitation hospital affects those expected to provide care in these facilities. All staff are included in the scope of work -- nurses, doctors, aides, administrators, other staff, as well as volunteers. The three specific aims of the study are: 1. to seek out and identify the main elements of staff life, 2. to identify and describe the meanings and definitions that staff members attach to various aspects of the work experience with patients and families and with one another, 3. to describe and explore similarities and differences in understanding and meaning of the experience by different staff members. A byproduct of achieving the three central aims will be an increased understanding of factors affecting patient recovery and well-being. The data were collected during the period 1993 to 1995, and consist of: 1. detailed notes taken during the investigator's participation as a National Institutes of Health fellow in all staff activities (e.g., rounds, team conferences, observation on spinal cord and brain injury unit), 2. audiotapes and notes from 75 staff and 20 patient interviews, and 3. detailed notes from 30 informal, untapped supplemental interviews.
