Job Stress Dimensions and Their Relationship to Job Change Intention among Nurses

Job stress can influence job turnover in organizations. Little data is available on job stress dimensions and their relationship to job turnover among Iranian nurses. The aims of this study were investigating job stress dimensions and examining their relationship to job change intention among nurses. In this cross-sectional study، 385 randomly selected nurses from hospitals of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences participated. The Persian version of Job Content Questionnaire (P-JCQ) and demographic questionnaires were used for data collection. Using SPSS (version 11. 5) software، descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney U test were applied for data analysis. The means (SD) of decision latitude، psychological job demands، social support، physical job demands and job insecurity were found to be 58. 15 (6. 50)، 38. 19 (5. 14)، 22. 67 (3. 67)، 16. 03 (2. 58) and 7. 74 (3. 85)، respectively. The results revealed that decision latitude and social support dimensions had low levels، but psychological and physical job demands as well as job insecurity dimensions had high levels among the study subjects. The findings showed that 56. 4% of the subjects intended to change their jobs. The mean score of all job stress dimensions had significant relationship with job turnover. The majority of subjects were exposed to high levels of job stress and most of nurses intended to change their jobs. Based on the results، any interventional program for minimizing job turnover should focus on reducing job insecurity and physical job demands as well as increasing decision latitudes and social support among nurses