The role of social support on occupational stress among hospital nurses

Stress is a nonspecific reaction to everything the body needs. Although occupational stress exists in every occupation, it is seen with more frequency and intensity amongst those occupations related to human health. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between occupational stress and social support (SS) among hospital nurses. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1144 hospital nurse in China. They were investigated with a self-administered questionnaire about socio-demographic characteristics, occupational stress and social support. A validated version of the revised Occupational Stress Inventory (OSI-R) was applied to evaluate occupational stress; SS was measured by nine questions. Logistic regression analysis was used to study the association between occupational stress and SS and adjusted for income, gender, marital status, working years, educational level, and profession. Of 1144 nurses, the majority age group was less than 30 years, and the mean age across participants was 31.8 years. Further correlation analysis indicated that score of ORQ and PSQ had a significant negative correlation with score of SS (P<0.05), and a significant positive correlation was found between Score of PRQ and score of SS (P<0.05). The univariate analysis and multivariate analysis results also revealed that high SS increased significantly with decreasing ORQ score and increasing PRQ score after controlling for income, gender, marital status, working years, educational level and job title. SS significantly influences occupational stress in hospitals nurse. We also should pay more attention to occupational stress of married and long working years nurse.