Compare the Level of Stress and Coping Strategies Adopted by the Staff Nurses Working in Various Patient Care Settings

Background: There is obvious need to have the safest working environments and the best quality of health care delivery to patients by nurses working in the hospitals. Effective stress management and adaptive coping strategies adopted by nurses is one of the very important steps towards this goal. The current study was conducted with the objective of comparing the level of stress and coping strategies adopted by the staff nurses working in various patient care settings. Methods:  A descriptive comparative design was chosen, by using proportion to size stratified random sampling, 240 staff nurses were selected from three strata- general ward, private ward, ICU/ Emergency units. Data were collected by self-report method using sociodemographic proforma, Perceived Stress scale and coping scale. Results: Among staff nurses working in general wards, private wards and ICU, severe stress was experienced by ICU staff (42%) while majority of the staff nurses in general wards and private wards were experiencing moderate level of stress. There was no significant difference between the coping strategies adopted by staff nurses working in general wards, private wards and ICU. The present study also observed that majority of the staff nurses were using emotional based coping strategies i.e. strategy of turning to religion being used the most. Among the avoidance based coping techniques, use of alcohol and drug were the least used strategy. The staff nurses who adopted emotion based coping and problem based coping experienced lower stress level while those who use avoidance coping experienced severe stress level. The staff nurses who were young, novice, unmarried, having less number of dependents in family, earning low salary were found to have significantly associated with higher stress level. Conclusion: The present study concludes that if there were effective management of stress among ICU and novice nurses, the work place errors can be minimized; productivity can be increased to maximum and ultimately can enhance quality patient care.