Self-Efficacy-Based intervention for stress management in health centers employees

Professional occupations for the healthcare workers are usually rife with occupational stress, especially when job demand exceeds the capabilities of the worker and workplace support. The effects of this condition include burnout, low well-being, and low-quality care. Accordingly, using self-efficacy theory of Bandura, the study appraises the impact of self-efficacy-based education intervention on stress management among health center employees of Ramhormoz County in Iran.

The quasi-experimental study was conducted on a sample of 103 employees drawn from urban and rural health centers, who were clustered for randomization into an intervention group (n = 49) and a control group (n = 54). The intervention constituted eight weekly 45-minute face-to-face self-efficacy sessions spread over two months. Before and two months after the intervention, data were collected with the Parker and DeCotiis Occupational Stress Questionnaire and the Schwarzer's General Self-Efficacy Questionnaire. Data analyses were conducted using paired, independent t-tests, and Mann-Whitney U-test using SPSS 27; a level of significance was set at p < 0.05.

Before the educational intervention, there were no significant differences in terms of job stress (p = 0.107), occupational anxiety (p = 0.280), occupational stress (p = 0.181), and self-efficacy (p = 0.176) between experimental and control groups. But after the intervention, there were significant differences between the groups in terms of job stress (p = 0.012), occupational stress (p = 0.034), and self-efficacy (p = 0.038). No significant difference found in occupational anxiety (p = 0.473).

The effectiveness of the self-efficacy-based educational intervention was evident in its positive effect on stress management and coping techniques among health center employees in the Ramhormoz county. The study emphasized that training in self-efficacy could be beneficial for enhancing self-efficacy and reducing work stress in the interventional group-by linking individual competence to job adoption and stress management.

This study was registered with the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT), registration number IRCT20211222053487N1, on 2023-09-26.