Situational Anxiety among Nurses

Background: Nurses routinely deal with anxiety. Thus, it causes several major problems for nurses and patients. This study was conducted to determine the level of situational anxiety in nurses. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on 118 nurses working at FayazBakhsh and Imam Reza hospitals. Situational anxiety was assessed via Persian version of Spiel Berger anxiety inventory questionnaire (SAIQ) consisting of 20 multiple-choice items based on the Likert Scale. Data were analyzed using SPSS16. Results: 64.4% of the participants were female and 80.5% were married. 66% of them had children. The mean age and standard deviation were 35.75 ± 5.18 and the work experience was 11.31 ± 5.02. 17.8% of the nurses were suffering from low anxiety, 71.18% had moderate or higher than moderate anxiety, and 11.02% had relatively severe or severe anxiety. No significant difference was found in situational anxiety among the nurses in terms of marital status, work shift, and ward of work. Conclusions: There was a moderate level of situational anxiety among nurses. Nursing care, regardless of the type of ward, creates anxiety and needs more attention to be reduced.