Igiene e Sanità Pubblica 2025; 100 (3): 131-144
Incoronata Chiusolo, Marco Astegno, Nicole Beraldin, Eleonora Bettini, Manuela Cassanelli, Elisa Daprà, Beatrice De Marchi, Lisa Forchini, Micaela Fozzato, Alex Garzon, Veronica Giovannetti, Eva Maria Laimer, Alessandra Marina Peruzzi, Salvatore Russo, Davide Ruzzante, Andrea Segattini, Alessandro Sibona, Salvina Spurio, Marta Tealdo, MartinaZanella, Alvisa Palese.
Corso di Laurea in Scienze Infermieristiche e Ostetriche, Insegnamento di Ricerca Organizzativa
Abstract
Organizational justice represents a key construct in healthcare settings, influencing professionals’ well-being, quality of care, and the sustainability of healthcare systems. In nursing, the perception of fairness in decision-making processes, resource allocation, and professional relationships plays a particularly relevant role. This study aimed to analyse organizational justice in nursing settings, exploring its antecedents, consequences, and measurement approaches, integrating evidence from the literature with nurses’ perceptions. A narrative literature review was conducted, consulting PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar using search strategies structured around specific thematic areas. To further explore the findings, an exploratory qualitative study was conducted, based on semi-structured interviews with 16 nurses selected through purposeful sampling. Data were analysed using narrative synthesis and thematic analysis. Organizational justice emerged as a multidimensional construct articulated into distributive, procedural, and relational dimensions, and associated with outcomes such as job satisfaction, psychological well-being, burnout, and turnover. Key antecedents included leadership styles, decision-making processes, organizational communication, and recognition systems. Qualitative findings highlighted how organizational justice is experienced as a concrete, everyday phenomenon, shaped by inequalities in opportunities, limited participation in decision-making, lack of recognition, and relational dynamics perceived as arbitrary. These conditions are associated with frustration, loss of motivation, and progressive disengagement, leading to outcomes such as burnout, turnover, and forms of withdrawal, including forms of withdrawal that may be interpreted as quiet quitting. Organizational justice can be considered a structural dimension of healthcare settings, crucial for professionals’ well-being and quality of care. Promoting transparent, participatory, and fair decision-making processes, together with inclusive leadership and recognition practices, represents a strategic priority to prevent disengagement and support the sustainability of healthcare systems.
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