Comparison of major stressors perceived by ICU and non-ICU nurses

A comparison of frequency and sources of nursing job stress perceived by intensive care, hospice and medical‐surgical nurses

“…A sigruficant finding of this study was that ICU, hospice and medical-surgical nurses were similar with respect to overall frequency of job stress, no studies were available with which to compare the results The findmgs, however, are mconsistent with most comparative studies that mduded ICU nurses (Anderson et al 1988, Bargaglioth & Trygstad 1987, Bohannan-Reed et al 1983, Kelly & Cross 1985, Vincent & Coleman 1986, but are consistent with others that included hospice nurses (Barstow 1980, Gray-Toft & Anderson 1981a Results of the study support reports m the hterature that mdicate that nursing is a stressful profession regardless of the unit on which nurses work Another significant findmg in this study concems the areas of commonabty and vanability in the sources of stress perceived by the three groups of nurses Data analysis failed to show sigruficant group differences m five of the eight stress subscales relationships with physicians, emotional demands/uncertamty, communication on the unit, patient aggression and supervision These results partially support the findings of others who have found common sources of stress m the groups studied (Gray-Toft & Anderson 1981a, Leatt & Schneck 1980 In these studies, however, common stressors were different from those reported m the present study The dispanties may be due to differences m soaodemographic charadenstics of the groups, geographical location of the studies, tools used to measure stress, and the time m which data were collected ICU, hospice and medical-surgical nurses differed significantly m three sources of job stress -one related to patient care (death and dying) and two related to management of the imit (floating and work overload/stafifmg) Situations associated with death and dymg were significantly more stressful for ICU and hospice nurses than for medical-surgical nurses This findmg is m agreement with those of Gray-Toft & Anderson (1981a) and Power & Sharp (1988), and supports the view that expenences with death and dymg are more stressful for those who are more likely to deal with it on a daily basis (l e ICU and hospice nurses)…”

“…The concept of stress has been of concem to nurses since 1859 (Nightingale 1949) and has been descnbed m nursing literature smce the 1950s (Stehle 1981) While both ICU and hospice nursmg have been descnbed as stressful, most of the research in this area has exammed job stress m intensive care nursmg (Stehle 1981) Common stressors found m ICU nurses have mduded work overload, issues of death and dymg, and physician relationships (Anderson & Basteyn 1981, Gentry & Parkes 1982, Gray-Toft & Anderson 1981a, Kleck 1984 Few studies of job stress have mduded nurses m other settmgs In ccMnpanson studies, groups have generally mduded ICU nurses and nwdtcal-fttrgical nurses (Anderson et al 1988, Bargaglioth & Trygstad 1987, Bohannan-Reed et al 1983, Kelly & Cross 1985, Vincent & Coleman 1986 Results of these studies suggest that ICU nurses expenence more stress than medical-surgical nurses Leatt & Schneck (1980), however, did not demonstrate a significant difiference between ICU and medical-surgical head nurses m perceived stress…”