Investigation of some occupational stressors among nurses

Abstract

Introduction: Nowadays, occupational stress is one of the most important occupational risk factors that can cause a decrease in production and bring about work absence, human resources shift, job dissatisfaction and high health costs among the staffs. American National Occupational Safety Association ranked nursing first among other 40 stressful occupations. There are numerous occupational stressors in nursing occupation. The present study aimed to define the severity of nursing stressors among nurses.

Methods: This was a descriptive analytic study. The sampling was conducted by random stratified method on 170 nurses working in different wards of medical university hospitals. Toft-Anderson questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data were analyzed through SPSS software. Frequency distribution, mean and spearman coefficient tests were applied in data analysis.

Results: The findings showed that most of the nurses (73-47%) experience moderate stress. In addition, there was a positive statistical association between the score of each item and total occupational stress. The item of having interaction with physicians had the highest association with total nursing occupational stress. There was a significant association between demographic characteristics, marital status and working hours with occupational stressors (P<0.001).

Conclusion: Given the findings of the research, application of appropriate preventive methods is suggested to diminish nursing occupational stress.