THE RELATIONSHIP BEWEEN WORK-RELATED STRESS, COPING, AND SOCIAL SUPPORT (NURSING, BURNOUT).
Contributors: University of California, San Francisco.
Published: 1984
Number of pages: 187
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The purposes of this cross-sectional analytic study of work-related stress among medical-surgical (n = 63) and critical care nurses (n = 67) were to: (a) explore the relationship between environmental demands (stressors), personal resources (Work-Related Conditioners, coping, and social support) and outcomes of stress among nurses; (b) identify the personalogical factors which might account for variance in the nurse's responses to work-related stress; (c) identify the coping and social support resources that are helpful in mediating the effects of stress; and (d) identify the stressors of medical-surgical and critical care nurses. Stress outcomes were assessed by self-report measures of depression, trait anxiety, burnout, satisfaction with nursing care, tenure, stressfulness of work, and independence in making patient care decisions. A linear relationship between environmental demands (stressors) and the personal resources of Work-Related Conditioners, coping, and social support accounted for 23% of the variance in stress outcomes. The strongest predictor of stress outcomes (accounting for 14% of the variance) was the tendency not to use Wishful Thinking as the way of coping with the most stressful work-related incident.

This sample described their work environment as encouraging work pressure and an orientation toward tasks and minimally encouraging innovation. Management was perceived as being minimally supportive.

Using a critical-incident technique, a stress audit of the three greatest stressors occurring in the past six months, indicated that 94% of stressors reported by this sample were in the areas of management (53%), patient care (26%), and communication (15%). The occurrence of stressors in one stressor category was not related to the occurrence of stressors in other categories. Although the study indicated that medical-surgical nurses and critical care nurses did not significantly differ in the types of stressors reported, medical-surgical nurses were perhaps more stress vulnerable because they entered the situation with fewer Work-Related Conditioners (experience, education, certification in practice, and autonomy). This may explain why medical-surgical nurses reported feeling emotionally exhausted more frequently than did critical care nurses.

Nurses in this sample had high levels of trait anxiety and experienced moderate levels of burnout.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-10, Section: B, page: 3205.

Thesis (D.N.S.)--UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO, 1984.

School code: 0034.