Effect of Stress on Manager's Performance in Different Wards of Hospitals Affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Today people who work in organizations are facing with some stressful factors. Some of this stress is not important and can be cured easily, but some of it is very important and dangerous that cannot be cured easily. This kind of stress can have a great influence on organization performance. So coping with job and organizational stress leads to saving worker's time, power and energy and can improve productivity and organizational performance immediately. This is a descriptive – analytical study conducted to assess the effect of stress on manager's performance in different wards of hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences.Data were collected by a questionnaire including 26 questions designed according to Likert scale.The sample consisted of 220 subjects each being a manager in different wards of hospitals more than one year. The statistical SPSS software and appropriate statistical tests were used for data analysis. In this study, 68.2% of the samples were female; 72.8% were married; 47.7% had a job record between 10 – 20 years; 40.6% were head nurses; 51.8% worked in general hospitals and 93.4% of managers had severe stress in the past 2 years with working environment being most stressful for them. The findings indicated that having high duty and expectations of top managers were the factors causing most stress in managers. Result also indicated that stress had negative impact on managers ability to make decision effectively at work. The relationship between job record and the effect of stress on performance was reverse and significant (P = 0.01), (r = -0.17).