The effect of critical thinking training on nurse's job stress in psychiatric ward

Psychiatric nurses tolerate high levels of occupational stress; hence، stress management methods should be implemented to prevent this stress’s effects on these nurses. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of critical thinking training on the nurses of psychiatric wards’ job stress. This is an experimental study of the pre-post test design or the control group. Sixty nurses and healthcare workers، working at Ibn-e-Sina psychiatric hospital of Mashhad were recruited. They have been randomly assigned into the experimental (n=30) and control (n=30) groups. Karasak job stress was used as the scale for data collection in three stages; before intervention، 1month، and 2month after the intervention. This intervention included two 6 hours sessions of critical thinking training، which were carried out with an interval of one week. Similarly، in control group two 6 hours sessions where held with an interval of one week to teach the terms of psychiatric symptoms to the nurses. Data were analyzed by χ2، t-test، ANOVA and Fridman by SPSS-11. 5. The results of this study reveal that the mean score of the job stress in the experimental group in pre-intervention stage (92. 1±7. 6) has been decreased to 84. 8±6. 4 one month after intervention، and to 81. 5±6. 9 in the third stage (two month after the intervention)، which is significantly more than the control group (P<0. 001). The job stress of the control group increased admirably one month and two month after the intervention stage (P<0. 001). As critical thinking training is an effective method to decrease the job stress، it is suggested that the managers consider it to decrease the nurses’ job stress.