The Influence of Stress on Work Behavior Among Nurses
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the study
The general objective of this study is to investigate the influence of stress on work behavior among Nurses in Federal Medical Centre Abeokuta. The specific objectives are:
- To ascertain the causes of work stress among nurses in Federal Medical Centre Abeokuta.
- To determine the relationship between stress and job dissatisfaction among Nurses in Federal Medical Centre Abeokuta.
- To examine the effect of stress among nurses on the safety of patients Federal Medical Centre Abeokuta.
- To investigate the impact long working hours on the job performances of Nurses in Federal Medical Centre Abeokuta.
- To know if work stress influences negative job attitude among Nurses in Federal Medical Centre Abeokuta.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This information discusses stress caused by factors in the work environment. While factors outside the workplace can contribute to a person’s overall stress response, this information focuses mainly on stress that has occurred as a result of factors within the workplace.
Stress can affect everyone so this information is relevant to employees, employers, managers, supervisors, the self-employees apprentices and trainees.
Conceptual Framework
Meaning of Occupational stress
Stress is a universal element experienced by employees around the globe. Stress has become major problem for employer particularly in developing nation where the employer does not realized impart of stress on employees performance which over stress, managerial role, stress management job performance.
An individuals in his or her job face stress as Jam Shed et al (2011) suggested the work place is potentially an important source of stress for bankers because of the amount of time they spent in their respective banks and that stress often a decrease their performance. Therefore, occupation of individuals could be a major source of stress in the given circumstance. When individual faces stress due to various conditions of their occupation and fail to cope with stress, it results into burnout.
Basically in Industries lack of administrative support from boss (manager) work overload and time pressure, riskiness of job, poor relationship with customers and co workers and work family balance cause stress which in turns decrease employee performance. The same was contributed my maters on (1980) “cause of stress are many like work load. Cut in staff, change at work, long work hours, shift work, lack of supervision, inadequate training, in appropriate working conditions, too heavy responsibility and poor relations with colleagues. “ The same was identified by Ganster and Loghan (2005) “ huge and multi fields literature points a lots of key factors such as work environment, management support, work load etc in determining how stressful the work can be its effect on employee physical and mental health”
In Federal Medical Centre Abeokuta particularly higher management does not realize the impact of stress on employee performance which ultimately result in critical managerial dilemmas as Subha and Shakeel (2009) described “higher level of stress existed which no managerial concern for solution consequently lowering the employee performance, staking organizational reputation and loss of skilled employees, effective stress managing practices to increase employee satisfaction and overall employee performance” work overload and the time pressure to complete too much work in short span of time is big source of stress which decreases the performance of employees as Baback at al (2010) studied “ with excessive pressure, the job demand cannot be meet, relaxation turns to exhaustion and a sense of satisfaction replaces with the feeling of stress, motivation sheds away and the workers start losing interest in the work and hence performance chart shows a negative trend”
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The study adopted a descriptive research design. This was to describe the situation or phenomenon of the study as it exists naturally on the ground. The design is used in gathering information from a larger population, and to provide descriptive and inferential information on the variables of the study (Polit & Beck, 2008; Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007; Fraenkel & Wallen, 2006).
Sources of data
Data for the study was gathered from both primary and secondary sources. The primary source dealt with information gathered from selected nurses.
Data collection was achieved by the use of questionnaire and interview to solicit information from the nurses. And also, the secondary data dealt with other written documents of the hospital which was meant for other purpose and not this research.
Population
The sample population of this study was 721 (Human Resource Department, 2012). 70 nurses were chosen representing 10% of the total population of 700 for the study. This sample size according to Saunders (2006) is appropriate for such population. It comprised of all nurses of various directorates at the hospital. Seventy (70) questionnaires were distributed to respondents.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Causes of Stress in Nurses
A lot of people experience stress every day, and stressors are similar for everyone. Some people by their nature are more prone to stress than others and likely to be stressed by things that would easily roll off someone else. Dissimilarity in people‟s features such as coping style and personality are most significant in forecasting whether certain job conditions will outcome in stress. It should note that stress is subjective because what is stressful for one may not be stressful for another. Even though the importance of personality differences cannot be disregarded, scientific facts advocates that certain working conditions are more stressful to most individuals. The figure below shows the response of the causes of stress among nurses at FMCA.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Conclusion
In conclusion, it said that stress is a natural phenomenon that can be experienced by all human beings irrespective of gender or social status. Thus this subject matter must be well understood especially by management of organization such as FMCA, in order to have a good policy direction to help promote high performance among nurses in the hospital and other such health institutions.
Organizations may be hesitant to spend money for additional programs and staffing, but could be convinced if they were really made aware of the high cost of occupational stress due to increased absenteeism, compensation claims, risks of litigation due to errors, negativity and decreased patient satisfaction. Decreasing stress for nurses in the workplace is multifaceted (Rosenstein, 2002). The first step is for organizations to recognize, and accept that the work environment is responsible for much of the stress experienced by nurses, and not just something that nurses have to deal with of their own. Therefore, administrators must be committed to implementing changes that will help to minimize some of the known stressors of nurses. Nurses need to feel that they are involved in decision making especially related to patient care issues. Therefore a more decentralized democratic management approach would be beneficial and this is imperative to increase nurses‟ visibility in the workplace by establishing programs that recognizes their contributions.
Recommendation
From the findings and conclusions of the study, the following recommendations are made:
- Management of Federal Medical Center Abeokuta organizes seminars, workshops, fora for nurses that are targeted at specific sources of stress like conflict management, work load and others. This would aid staff of Federal Medical Center Abeokuta to plan measures to reduce stress among nurses.
- Stress reduction programmes that target some of the prevalent stressors could be organized for the supervisors in order to equip them to assist the nurses.
- Nurses should be equipped with stress coping skills, and introduced to other non-nursing related activities.
- Improving safe and secure environment at the hospital by providing adequate and good facilities.
Implications for counselling
- From the findings of the study it implies that being male or female does not really matter so far as stress is concerned. Counsellors are therefore to put in techniques that treat both sexes with equal attention in stress management.
- It was again deduced from the study that nurses of different age groups assume the same of stress or their stress types do not differ significantly. Counsellors should intensify their efforts at giving psycho-education to nurses on stress related issues.
- Counselling and training of supervisors in the field of administration as well as planning measures to improving interpersonal relationship among nurses in the hospital.
- Education of nurses for stress management and skilled training for conflict resolution and assertiveness will help to reduce stress among workers.
- Stress management programmes can be included in the curriculum of nursing training so that nurses who come out could manage their own stress in the future.
- Training in proper time management skills is important to enhance planning of work to avoid work-overload.
References
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- Cox, T., Cox, S. and Griffiths, A. (1996), Work related stress in nursing: controlling the risk to health. Retrieved November 20, 2012, from International Labour Office-Geneva Web Site: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/condtrav/pdf/4stress.pdf
- Demerouti, E., Bakker, A., Nachreiner, F. and Schaufeli, W.B. (2000), A model of burnout and life satisfaction amongst nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing 32, 454–464.
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