Effect of an educational program on job tension management in nurses, based on self-efficacy theory

Nursing is one of the tensest jobs and one of the outcomes of job tension is burnout.It has devastating effects on patient care, nurse's physical and mental health; and health care costs. Since "self efficacy", according to theoretical principles, presents a procedure which can be applied by ealth caretakers in health programs to improve health, the present study aimed at determining increasing the management of tension in nurses. In this clinical trial study, 100 full-time female nurses in Mashhad hospitals, who had an Associate's degree or a higher one, were selected through randomized staging. Then; they were randomly divided into a control and a case group. In order to gather data, Osipow standard nursing tension questionnaire and General self efficacy scale were used. Educational intervention was made during eight 1.5 hour sessions and follow-up was done 3 and 6 months later. The obtained data was analyzed by means of SPSS software, Mann-Whitney test, Friedman test, and Wilcoxon test; and P<0.05 was taken as the significant level. The experimental and control groups didn’t significantly differ in job stress and self efficacy before the intervention. But, after intervention, stress management behavior and self efficacy were increased significantly in the experimental group, while the control group had not undergone significant changes (P<0.001). Findings of the study somehow approve many of earlier studies regarding the close relationship between perceived self-efficacy and job tension management. Therefore; this fact can be stuck to in interventions aiming at gaining better efficacy.