Original ArticleThe Relationships Among Workplace Stressors, Coping Methods, Demographic Characteristics, and Health in Australian Nurses
Section snippets
Ways of Coping With Stress
Lazarus and Folkman (1984, p. 141) defined coping as “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person.” Coping efforts may be directed externally (problem focused) or internally (emotion focused). Problem-focused coping may be viewed as attempting to manage or change the problem causing the stress, whereas emotion-focused coping attempts to alleviate emotional distress.
Participants
The sample consisted of 320 Australian registered nurses who were listed on the New South Wales Nurses Registration Board (NRB) database. The inclusion criteria were having a license to practice nursing in New South Wales and currently working in an acute care public hospital. Participants had a mean age of 42.67 years (SD = 9.58 years, range = 23–68 years). Further details on the demographics of the group are shown in Table 1.
Instruments
The four questionnaires used for this study were the following:
- 1.
Results
Table 3 shows descriptive statistics for sample demographics, NSS scales, and WAYS coping strategies as well as for the SF-36 physical and mental health scores. The most common source of nursing stress was workload, followed by death and dying, uncertainty about treatment, and conflict with physicians and nurses. The least reported stressors were perceived lack of support and inadequate preparation.
Looking at the relative scores (percentages describing the proportion of effort for each coping
Discussion
The aim of this study was to describe the relationships among demographic characteristics, workplace stressors, coping mechanisms, physical state of health, and mental state of health among Australian nurses. Mean scores for physical and mental health demonstrated that Australian nurses in this sample had normal levels of physical health and slightly-lower-than-normal levels of mental health. It is not possible to conclude from the findings whether nursing caused lower mental health, given that
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