PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS, EMOTIONAL DISTRESS AND PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF NURSES

MICHAEL JOHN ORRICO, Purdue University

Abstract

There has been considerable disagreement regarding the stress process and subseqent emotional distress (e.g. anxiety, depression, etc.) which often results for the person. Several authors have suggested that certain events are inherently stressful and that it is the accumulated frequency of experiencing these events which results in undesirable adaptive outcomes in emotional functioning (Holmes & Rahe, 1967; Selye, 1956). While this approach has been popular there has been increasing evidence that the stressfulness of an event is determined by the meaning that the person gives to the event (Lazarus, 1966). It would seem worthwhile to study these relationships in an effort to more clearly understand the stress process. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the frequency (i.e. how often an event occurs) with which nurses experience certain job situations (e.g. conflicts with physicians, death of a patient) and the amount of perceived stressfulness (i.e. how upsetting or threatening) they report for these situations. Differences in frequency and perceived stressfulness reported were related to the amount of emotional distress (e.g. anxiety, depression, etc.) reported by nurses. In addition, an investigation was made of how personality, coping and background characteristics are able to distinguish between nurses who report high and low amounts of job stress. One hundred and thirteen registered nurses (RN) and thirty-six licensed practical nurses (LPN) from twelve hospital units were administered a Nursing Questionnaire (NQ), the Nursing Stress Scale (NSS) and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). Results of this study indicate a significant positive relationship between the report of frequency and perceived stressfulness for events on the NSS. This was contrary to the expectation that these two concepts would be independent of each other. Both frequency and stressfulness scores on the NSS had low moderate correlations with measures of depression and poor morale. Combining stressfulness scores with frequency scores did not improve the prediction of emotional distress as reported by the nurses. Several MMPI scales combined to distinguish nurses who were classified as experiencing high and low amounts of job stress. Lastly, LPN's were found to report less job stress than were RN's and nurses who work the night shift report less stress than nurses who work the day shift.

Degree

Ph.D.

Subject Area

Psychotherapy

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