Job stress experienced by nurses working in private hospitals in Kottayam

Abstract

Many tasks of Nurses are routine, quite difficult, disgusting, unpleasant, and not rewarding, nurses are likely to burn out due to job stress. Job stress affects nurses' health, increases absenteeism and attrition, errors in treating patients, infection rates, and increased cost of employment for hospitals.The aim of quantitative descriptive survey study was to find out the Job stress of 300 female nurses working in selected private hospitals in the Kottayam, selected by simple random sampling in December 2021. Socio-demographic tool and Nurses’ Occupational Stressor Scale (NOSS) were used for data collection.The majority (61%) of the subjects belonged to the age group of 31 to 40 years. The data showed that the majority of the subjects (89%) were married, 56% were from nuclear families and most had 1-2 children. Among the subjects, 55% of spouses had private jobs while 2% were unemployed and 9% worked abroad. Most of the subjects (78%) were GNM. The scope of work was divided equally among the staff, ie, medical 30%, surgical 17%, and critical care medicine/emergency medicine/OT 43%. Of 300 subjects, 47.6% had more than 5 years of experience. 82% of subjects underwent CNE and 73% participated in stress management programs at some stage of their professional life. Of the 300 subjects, 80.3% reported as they are receiving support from their immediate supervisors and Hospital management, while 53% reported that their job interfered with family life, and 44% were moderately satisfied in meeting their family needs. 81% of the subjects showed medium job stress. The mean was 51 (the mean percentage was 60.8%) with a standard deviation of 5.9.For nurses, job stress seems to vary according to individual and job characteristics and work-family conflicts. Interventions should be planned to prevent and manage stress, which in turn contributes to job performance and productivity.