Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Spiritual Therapy on Job Stress and Psychological Distress among Intensive Care Unit Nurses

Job Stress along with psychological distress is an important problem in nurses. The aim of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral spiritual therapy on job stress and psychological distress among intensive care unit nurses.

This study was a quasi-experimental pretest - posttest with control group. The study population was consisted of all intensive care unit nurses of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran City in 2020. The sample consisted of 30 (15 for each group) intensive care unit nurse that were selected by as a voluntary and randomly recruits to each of groups. Then, the participants in the experimental group participated in 8 sessions of 90 min of cognitive-behavioral spiritual therapy, while the control group did not receive any therapy. Instruments for gathering data were Cohenchr('39')s Job Stress Questionnaire (1964) and Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (2003). Then, the data were analyzed using SPSS.v21 software and statistical tests such as MANCOVA and ANCOVA.

The results of MANCOVA showed that cognitive-behavioral spiritual therapy had significant impact on Job Stress (F=34.77, P=0.000) and subscales of imaginary inefficiency (F=208.77, P=0.000) and ambiguity and limitation (F=5.20, P=0.000). Furthermore, the results of ANCOVA indicate that the cognitive-behavioral spiritual therapy had significant impact on psychological distress (F=42.81, P=0.000).

Based on the findings of this study, cognitive-behavioral spiritual therapy decreases Job Stress and psychological distress in intensive care unit nurses and represents new horizons in clinical interventions and thus could be used as an effective interventional method.  So, it seems that this intervention is an applicable treatment for intensive care unit nurse.