Work Factors and Stress Level in Nurses in a Surgical Center

Abstract

Introduction: Work stress is a reaction to demands and pressures at work, affecting the psychological and physical health of the nurse and, the quality of care provided to patients.

Objective: To describe the work factors and their relationship with the level of work stress of nurses in a surgical center.

Methods: This is a descriptive-correlational research of nurses from the Surgical Center at Guillermo Almenara Irigoyen Hospital during 2017. The sample was 70 nurses out a population of 92. A questionnaire from Fornes was adapted and the nursing stress scale was used, since it is valid and reliable to evaluate work factors and level of work stress respectively, with prior informed consent. The data were processed with IBM SPSS version 25 software; descriptive statistics and Pearson's chi2 square method were used for the analysis.

Results: Out of the sample, 100.00% were female, 41.42% were over 50 years old, 60.00% were hired and 47.14% had more than 20 years working. Work factors related to stress were present in 52.85%. Inadequate temperature was the significant environmental factor in 67.10%, work overload as organizational factor highlighted in 78.60% and unhealthy organizational climate resulted in 64.30%. Concerning factors such as pressure, demand and content, 74.30% reported excessive supervision and control of tasks and 54.30% reported demanding work place. The chi square test (X2) gave the result 4.14.

Conclusions: There is significant relationship only between work pressure factors, demand and work content with the stress level of the nurses.