Occupational stress among staff nurses: Controlling the risk to health

Nursing has been identified as an occupation that has high levels of stress. Job stress brought about hazardous impacts not only on nurses' health but also on their abilities to cope with job demands.

This study aimed at finding out the degree of work-related stress among the staff nurses and various determinants, which have a impact on it.

Institutional-based cross-sectional study conducted on GNM qualified nurses. Predesigned and pre-tested questionnaire covering their sociodemographic variables in part I and professional life stress scale by David Fontana in part II. Analysis used was Chi-square test and logistic regression for various factors.

Risk for professional stress due to poor and satisfactory doctor's attitude was found about 3 and 4 times more than with excellent attitude of doctors toward the staff nurses. A statistically significant association (P < 0.024) between department of posting and level of stress. Nurses reported that they had no time for rest, of whom 42% were suffering from moderate-to-severe stress. The nurses who felt that the job was not tiring were found to be less stressed as those who perceived job as tiring (OR = 0.43).

The main nurses' occupational stressors were poor doctor's attitude, posting in busy departments (emergency/ICU), inadequate pay, too much work, and so on. Thus, hospital managers should initiate strategies to reduce the amount of occupational stress and should provide more support to the nurses to deal with the stress.