Job stressors, coping strategies and its relationship with mental health status of nurses

Nursing considered as a stressful Job. Job stressors can affect adversely the mental and physical health of nurses. Nurses use different strategies for coping with job stressors. The aim of this study was to determine the role of job stress and coping strategies in nurses mental health status who were employed in Ramsar, Imam Sajjad Hospital in 2011. This is a descriptive analytic study that was done on100 nurses. Sampling was performed by census method, ant the data were collected with a questionnaire including four parts (demographic data, job stressors list, way of coping questionnaire(WOCQ), and general health questionnaire (GHQ-28). In order to analyze the data, descriptive analytical statistics (chi-square, Pearson correlation, and SPSS16 software) had been used. 60% of the nurses had mental health score greater than the cut point of GHQ-28 questionnaire. The most important job stressors were: patient's death observation, high work load, and low income. The result showed a significant relationship between job stresses and nurses mental health status (p<0/000), and it also showed a significant relationship between coping strategies of painful problem solving with all of subscales of mental health. There was a significant relationship between economical satisfaction with anxiety-sleep disorders, and social function.(p<0/05, p<0/000). Job stress is considered as a great risk factor for nurse's health. So teaching effective coping strategies to the nurses, and paying more attention to reduce their job stresses are necessary for health care managers.