The Role of Optimism and Spiritual Experiences in Predicting the Psychological Stress in Nurses in Waliasr Hospital of Birjand

Nurses are under great mental and emotional pressure at work; therefore, the current research was conducted with the aim of investigating the role of optimism and spiritual experiences in predicting the psychological stress in nurses.

The present study was a descriptive-correlational. The statistical population included all the nurses of the Coronary and Emergency Department of Waliasr Hospital in Birjand in the first two months of 2022; 104 nurses participated in the study selected by available sampling, including all the people of the statistical population in the form of a census; they responded to the Spiritual Experience Questionnaire of Underwood and Tersey, and the optimism subscale of the Psychological Capital Questionnaire by Luthans et al. Data analysis was done using Pearson's correlation test and multiple regression on the SPSS version 24 software. In the present study, all ethical considerations were observed and the authors reported no conflict of interests.

The results showed that the calculated correlation between spiritual experiences (r=0.603) and optimism (r=0.416) with psychological stress was negative (P<0.01). And the components of spiritual experiences and optimism explained 46.8% of the variance in psychological pressure.

The results of the study show the importance of optimism and spiritual experiences in reducing the psychological stress of nurses, therefore, in order to reduce the psychological stress of nurses, it is recommended to strengthen optimism and spiritual experiences in the framework of educational workshops in hospitals and health care centers.