Open AccessThe association between occupational stress and psychosomatic wellbeing among Chinese nurses
Author(s) -
Bo Gu,
Qingyuan Tan,
Shangping Zhao
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.59
H-Index - 148
eISSN - 1536-5964
pISSN - 0025-7974
DOI - 10.1097/md.0000000000015836
Subject(s) - medicine , anxiety , occupational stress , workload , depression (economics) , pittsburgh sleep quality index , stressor , clinical psychology , cross sectional study , burnout , mental health , psychiatry , insomnia , sleep quality , pathology , computer science , economics , macroeconomics , operating system
Occupational stress impairs nurses’ psychosomatic wellbeing, which includes anxiety, depression, sleep quality, and somatic symptoms; however, few studies have focused on the associations between the subdimensions of occupational stress [workload and time pressure (WTP), professional and career issues (PC), patient care and interaction (PCI), interpersonal relationships and management problems (IRMP), resource and environment problem (REP)] and psychosomatic wellbeing among nurses in China. This study thus examined these associations using a cross-sectional survey in Sichuan, China. An online application was devised to collect data, with the scales of sociodemographic and occupational variables, Nurse Job Stressor Questionnaire, the 9- and 15-item Patient Health Questionnaires, the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Investigation was completed by 2889 nurses (96.7% women; mean age = 31.20 ± 6.72 years). Relationships were identified by correlation and multivariate regression analyses. Most (68.3%) nurses had high levels of occupational stress. The multivariate analyses revealed that WTP was correlated with anxiety ( P = .003). PC was associated with depression ( P = .033) and sleep quality ( P = .078). PCI was correlated with anxiety ( P = .031) and somatic symptoms ( P = .005). IRMP was associated with anxiety ( P = .018), depression ( P = .001), and somatic symptoms ( P = .025). Lastly, REPs had nonsignificant relationships with depression, anxiety, sleep quality, and somatic symptoms. In sum, nurses had high levels of occupational stress; therefore, a series of strategies should be implemented to help nurses cope with the above issues, which could promote nurses’ psychosomatic wellbeing, and have a buffering effect on nurses’ depression, anxiety, poor sleep quality, and somatic symptoms.