The relationship between anxiety levels and anger expression styles of nurses during COVID-19 pandemic

This study was carried out in a cross-sectional and correlational design to explore the relationship between anxiety levels and anger expression styles of nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sample of this cross-sectional and correlational type of study consisted of 618 nurses calculated with the snowball sampling method. The data were collected using a questionnaire developed by the researchers, the state anxiety inventory, and the trait anger and anger expression scale and was conducted between May 10 and 20, 2020 using an online questionnaire form. Percentage, mean, standard deviation, the Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Spearman correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis were used to evaluate the data.

The mean age of nurses was 34.98 ± 8.36 years (min: 20; max: 53), 87.4% were women, and 81.7% experienced a high level of anxiety. The anger scores of the participants were found to be 20.04 ± 4.43, the anger-in score was 15.55 ± 3.34, the anger-out score was 14.01 ± 2.87, and the anger control score was 22.93 ± 3.6. Being married, the presence of chronic disease, living in the Marmara region, working shifts, presence of an individual over 65 years of age at home, and having a COVID-19 test were found to be risk factors that significantly increase nurses' anxieties. A significant positive relationship was found between the anxiety scores, trait anger (r = 0.249, p = 0.000), anger-in (r = 0.174, p = 0.000) and anger-out (r = 0.205, p = 0.000) scores of nurses, and a significant negative relationship was found between the anxiety scores and anger control (r = 0.249, p = 0.000) score.

The study revealed that in the COVID-19 pandemic the anxiety levels of the nurses were high and that the high anxiety level negatively affected the style of anger expression, but the nurses were successful in maintaining anger control. In line with these results, it is important that nurses develop effective coping strategies to reduce their anxiety levels and that they receive increased levels of support in managing anger expression.