The implementation of new service demands and increasing rationalisation measures exercise stress and pressure on medical and nursing personnel in German hospitals. However, their satisfaction and health are important quality criteria in the ranking of a hospital. Basing on the introduction of a new tool, an inquiry was conducted among the medical and nursing personnel of two hospitals (A and B) in respect of the quality of their working conditions. The scope of the questionnaires covered the nature and kind of the work, opportunities of professional success, management of co-operation and conflicts, physical and structural obstacles to smooth working as well as the management of quality. Finally, a scale of complaints and a burn-out scale served to assess the personnel's subjective health situation. The questionnaire was submitted in hospital A between November 1999 and February 2000 to a total of 39 doctors (58 % compliance) and 84 nursing personnel (47 % compliance) of the specialist departments concerned with internal medicine, rheumatology, urology, general and accident surgery. In hospital B the questionnaire was completed between March and July 2001 by a total of 40 doctors (54 %) and 91 nursing personnel (68 %) of two departments of internal medicine, surgery, neurosurgery and gynaecology. Comparable to other studies, the nursing personnel in both the hospitals rated the working conditions more negatively than the medical personnel. The differences, however, are more of a quantitative (number of frequency of problems) than of a qualitative nature (type or kind of problems). With both groups, problems connected with structural difficulties in working and with quality management were by far most important while the nursing personnel also underlined physical stress. Individual health condition were also classified more negatively by the nursing personnel than by the doctors, and the overall physical complaints of the nursing personnel were generally greater than with the average population, whereas medical personnel registered fewer complaints. Health promotion measures in hospitals may help to prevent negative developments. Such measures are too rarely translated into reality.
