Occupational Stress and Mental Health Relationship in Nurses

Nursing is an stressful profession and nurses are often confronted with various stressors in their work environment. Job stress may have harmful effects on an individual’s physical and mental health and decrease quality of nursing care. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between job stress and mental health of nurses. A cross-sectional design was used for the study. The sample of the study consisted of 237 nurses who were selected randomly from teaching hospitals in Hamadan, Iran. Data were collected by the nurses stress scale (NSS) and GHQ-28. The validity of instruments was assured by a panel of experts. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was computed to assess the reliability of instruments. The reliability coefficient was 0.93 for the nursing stress scale and 0.82 for the General Health Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using the SPSS-13. The relationship between job stress and mental health was investigated by calculating Spearman’s correlation coefficients and χ2. Results The majority of nurses reported high levels of job stress. There was a significant relation between sex and number of night shifts with job stress. Psychological problems were seen in 42.9% of hospital nurses. There was a significant correlation between job stress and general health scores. This study showed more than one third of the participants experienced high levels of job stress and mental disorders.There was significant relationship between job stress and mental health. It is recommended to reduce stress and mental health problems by stress management training