Stress and Job Satisfaction among Staff Nurses

Mr. Suni. M. S.¹, Prof. Nirmala.V.², Mrs. Shani Sikkandar³

¹Clinical Psychologist, MES Medical College Hospital, Kerala.

²Vice Principal, MES College of Nursing, Perinthalmanna, Malappuram Dt, Kerala.

³Quality Manager, Korambayil Hospital, Manjeri.

*Corresponding Author Email: suninirmala@gmail.com

ABSTRACT:

Introduction: Nursing by itself is very stressful and nurses themselves are subject to stress from the demands of their career and need to know healthy ways of responding to maintain a person’s physical, emotional, and social well-being. Stress has an implication not only on the health and personal life but also on the job satisfaction and the quality of care rendered to the patients.

Objective: This study was carried out to assess the stress and job satisfaction among staff nurses working in selected hospitals, Malappuram district, Kerala.

Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 90 staff nurses from two hospitals (45 staff nurses each from a private and government hospital). The hospitals were chosen by simple random method and the study subjects were chosen by purposive sampling method. Data were collected using a checklist that consists of items to assess the stress and job satisfaction.

Findings: Majority 61% were females, 59% were married, 48% were Muslims, and 70% were appointed on a permanent basis in job and 50% each in private and government sector. There is a significant difference in stress and job satisfaction based on the religion of the staff nurses. There is no significant difference in stress among the staff nurses working in private and government hospital, whereas there is a significant difference in the job satisfaction among the staff nurses in the two sectors. There is a high negative correlation between job stress and job satisfaction and it is significant at 0.01 level.

Conclusion: The job stress significantly influences the job satisfaction among the staff nurses albeit there is subjectivity and individual differences in the experience of stress. Identifying stress at the earliest and paying attention to mange and overcome it may have an impact on their personal life and professional outcome in terms of quality of service and patient care.

KEYWORDS: Stress, Job satisfaction, Nursing, Nurses.

INTRODUCTION:

Everyone feel stress at one time or another as it has become a part of life nowadays. Stress is a condition in which the human system responds to changes in its normal balanced state.

It results from a change in the environment that is perceived as a challenge, a threat or danger. Stress is a subjective experience and the responses are unique to each individual. A healthy way of responding to the stress is essential to maintain a person’s physical, emotional and social well-being¹.

As nursing by its very nature is a stressful occupation, the nurses are subjected to varying levels of stress, namely work overload and role-based factors such as lack of power, role ambiguity, and role conflict. Threats to career development and achievement, including threat of redundancy, being undervalued and unclear promotion prospects are stressful. Stress is associated with reduced efficiency, decreased capacity to perform, a lack of concern for the organisation and colleagues. High levels of stress result in staff burnout and turnover and adversely affect patient care². Often the work related stress affects the quality of life, increases incidence of physical and  psychiatric morbidity  and may contribute to some forms of  illnesses such as musculoskeletal problems, stress and depression³.

NEED FOR THE STUDY:

Major occupational stress for nurses are increased workload, shift duties, inadequate resources, interpersonal conflicts, poor reward systems, bullying and physical violence,  conflicting job demands, and lack of control³. High level of Stress resulted in decreased job satisfaction and increased turnover⁴. A study among 807 registered nurses in an academic hospital by Tanya I Gelsema et al (2005) indicated that some of the job characteristics such as job demands and control mediated the relationship between work agreements and rewards and demands. Proper management of organisational and environmental conditions of work alters the job characteristics which in turn influence the nurse’s job satisfaction and psychological and physical distress⁵.

A study among 1200 staff nurses from 4 different hospitals to identify the relationship between work related stress, burnout, job satisfaction and the general health of the nurses by Natasha Khamisa et al (2015) found that the staff issues were associated with the burnout as well as job satisfaction. Burnouts among the nurses were identified to compromise productivity and their performance as well the quality of patient care. Job satisfaction and health of nurses were also affected by the issues in the work place⁶.

In a study among 2613 female nurses from 20 hospitals in China by Wuh et al(2010)  it was found that the role boundary and role insufficiency were the factors that had the highest association with occupational stress. Occupational health education and occupational training programmes may be necessary to improve the knowledge and ability of nurses to cope with job demands and reduce occupational stress⁷.

 Hence, identifying the various stressors in the work place at the earliest is imperative in improving the job performance, the quality of service provided and the personal job satisfaction. It lays the foundation for developing and implementing various programs and intervention strategies to enhance the nurse and patient related outcomes. 

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

A study to assess the Stress and Job satisfaction among Staff Nurses working in selected hospitals, Malappuram district, Kerala.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

· Assess the demographic characteristics of the staff nurses.

· Assess the stress and job satisfaction among the private and government staff nurses.

· Find the association of stress and job satisfaction among the staff nurses with their selected demographic variables.

· Find the relation between stress and job satisfaction.

METHODOLOGY:

Research design:

The research design used for the study was descriptive design.

Sampling technique:

A private and government hospital was selected by simple random method (lottery method).  Purposive sampling technique was used to choose the samples for the study from the selected hospitals.

Sample:

The sample of the present study comprised of 90 staff nurses working in selected hospitals, Malappuram district, Kerala.

Variables:

Dependent variables: Stress,

Independent variables: job satisfaction

Setting:

The present study was conducted among 90 staff nurses working in selected government and private hospitals of Malappuram district, Kerala.

Data collection tool:

Section A: Personal Performa to assess the demographic variables.

Section B: Checklist to assess the stress and job satisfaction among the staff nurses.

Data collection procedure:

After obtaining Official permission to conduct the study from hospital authorities, informed consent was taken from staff nurses after providing adequate information regarding the study.  And after ensuring confidentiality of information the data was collected from the staff nurses during the months of June and July 2015.

RESULTS:

Section 1- Description of demographic variables of the staff nurses

The data presented in the Table 1 shows that majority 61% were females, 59% were married, 48% were Muslims, 70% were appointed on a permanent basis in job and 50% each in private and government sector.

Table 1 – Frequency and percentage distribution of staff nurses according to their selected demographic variables.

S. No	Sample characteristics	Frequency	Percentage
1	Gender
	a. Male	35	39
	b. Female	55	61
2	Marital status
	a. Married	37	41
	b. Unmarried	53	59
3	Religion
	a. Hindu	23	25
	b. Muslim	43	48
	c. Christian	24	27
4	Type of appointment
	a. Permanent	63	70
	b. Temporary	27	30
5	Sector
	a. Private	45	50
	b. Government	45	50

Section 2 – Description of demographic variables of the staff nurses based on their sector of job.

Table 2 shows that among the 45 staff nurses employed in private sector 71% were females, 71% were unmarried, 49% were Muslims and 69% were permanent employees. Likewise among the 45 staff nurses in government sector 51% were females, 53% were married, 46% were Muslims and 71% were permanent employees.

Section 3 – Association of stress and job satisfaction with selected demographic variables among staff nurses

Table 3 shows that there is a difference between stress and job satisfaction based on religion among the staff nurses. There is no significant difference between stress and job satisfaction with other demographic variables among the staff nurses.

Section 4: Association of stress and job satisfaction of staff nurses with their sector of job.

Table 4 indicates that among the staff nurses working in private and government sector there is significant difference between both the groups in job satisfaction. There is no significant difference in stress among them.

Table 4 shows correlation between job satisfaction and stress. There is a high negative correlation between job stress and job satisfaction and it is significant at 0.01 level. A similar finding was noticed in a study conducted on 105 randomly selected nurses from 2 hospitals by Abaa Assibi Rita et al (2013) in Ghana. The findings revealed that there was a weak negative correlation between work stress and job satisfaction in the two hospitals⁸.

Table 2 – Frequency and percentage distribution of staff nurses according to their selected demographic variables based on their sector of job.

S. No	Sector	Sample characteristics	Frequen-cy	Percent-age
1	Private	Gender
		a. Male	13	29
		b. Female	32	71
		Marital status
		a. Married	13	29
		b. Unmarried	32	71
		Religion
		a. Hindu	11	24
		b. Muslim	22	49
		c. Christian	12	27
		Type of appointment
		a. Permanent	31	69
		b. Temporary	14	31
2	Government	Gender
		a. Male	22	49
		b. Female	23	51
		Marital status
		a. Married	24	53
		b. Unmarried	21	47
		Religion
		a. Hindu	12	27
		b. Muslim	21	46
		c. Christian	12	27
		Type of appointment
		a. Permanent	32	71
		b. Temporary	13	29

Table 3 - Association of stress and job satisfaction with selected demographic variables among staff nurses.

Variables		Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	sig
Stress	Between groups	226.728	2	113.364	3.893	0.024
	Within groups	2533.594	87	29.122
Job satisfaction	Between groups	53.423	2	26.712	0.817	0.445
	Within groups	2843.699	87	32.686

Table 4 – Association of stress and job satisfaction of staff nurses with their sector of job.

	Groups	N	Mean	Std. deviation	t	sig
Stress	Private sector	45	129.82	3.816	0.282	0.778
	Government sector	45	129.49	6.937
Job satisfaction	Private sector	45	103.57	4.576	2.328	0.022
	Government sector	45	100.78	6.410

Section 5 – Correlation between stress and job satisfaction.

Table 5 - Correlation between stress and job satisfaction.

Variables	Content	Job satisfaction	Stress
Job satisfaction	Pearson correlation	1	-.310**
	Sig. (2-tailed)		.003
	N	90	90
Stress	Pearson correlation	-.310**	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.003
	N	90	90

** Correlation is significant at 0.01 level (2 tailed)

CONCLUSION:

The findings of the study revealed that there is no significant difference in the stress among the staff nurses working in private and government sector but there is a significant difference in the job satisfaction between the groups. The results of the study also showed that there was a negative correlation between job stress and job satisfaction of staff nurses.

Thus it is concluded that the staff nurses working in both private and government sector experience stress and that influences their satisfaction at job. Hence it is essential to make them understand the various stressors and its impact on their health, personal life and their professional performance and promote implementation of various strategies to handle stressful situations in a healthy manner to lead a healthy personal and professional life.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

· Similar study can be carried out on a larger sample for broader generalization.

· Intervention programmes can be carried out to reduce the stress and its effectiveness can be assessed.

REFERENCE:

1. Taylor, Fundamentals of Nursing, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, Philadelphia, 7^th edition, 2011, pp 1520-1532.

2. Eleni Moustaka, sources and effects of work related stress in nursing, Health science journal, available from:http://www.hsj.gr/December 2015.

3. Rashaun Roberts, Alleviating job stress in nurses, available from http://www.medscape.com/june 25, 2012.

4. Pamela Gray Toft, stress among hospital nursing staff: its causes and effects, social science and medicine. Part A: Medical psychology and Sociology, 15(5) , 639-647.

5. Tanya. Gelsema, et al, stress in the nursing profession: the influence of organizational and environmental conditions and job characteristics international journal of stress management, 12(3), 222-240.

6. Natasha Khamisa et al, Work related stress, burnout, job satisfaction and general health of nurses, int. journal. environ. Res. Public Health, 2015, 12, 652-666.

7. Wuh, et al, Occupational stress among hospital nurses: cross sectional survey, J Adv Nur, 2010, 66(3), 627-34.

8. Abaa Assibi Rita, the cause of stress and job satisfaction among nurses at Ridge and patang hospitals in Ghana, International Journal of Asian Social Sciences, 2013, 3(3), 762-771.

Received on 11.01.2016                Modified on 27.01.2016

Accepted on 17.02.2016                © A&V Publications all right reserved

Asian J. Nur. Edu. and Research.2017; 7(1): 31-34.

DOI: 10.5958/2349-2996.2017.00008.8