The Influence of Stress in Nurses Performance

Answer

The Influence of Stress in Nurses Performance

            In spite of its importance, the nursing discipline has been repeatedly described as a strenuous job (Altmann, 2011). In fact, nurses have been cited to develop occupation-related silent symptoms that go undiagnosed (Donaldson et al., 2017). Donkor (2013) argues that while occupational stress is cross-dimensional, it is inexpedient to consider stress in the nursing profession as a personal or occasional problem to be remedied with palliatives. It has been affirmed that nurses indeed face an array of occupational stress, a fact which is agreeable based on the depth of empirical studies on the subject, as also submitted by Schön Persson et al. (2018). As a matter of fact, a significant number of nurses have at least thought of quitting due to occupational stress. Nevertheless, the depth of research, especially documents on the influences of stress on nurses’ health based on quality of life, the association between stress and nurses’ performance has been relatively unexamined (Saberi & Soheili, 2017). This discourse is a critique of a study by Azizollah et al. (2013) that was purposed towards studying the relationship between job stress and performance among hospital nurses in year of 2012-2013, entitled “The relationship between Job stress and performance among the hospitals nurses.”

Summary

            The study by Azizollah et al. (2013) comprised 491 participants, made up of nurses in hospitals which were selected through randomization, and finally 100 questionnaires were analyzed. The data collection tools were two questionnaires on occupational stress and performance, with 39 and 6 appropriate questions in each, founded on a Likert scale (Each variable was measured using previously developed instrument with a 5-point Likert scale for all the measurements used ranging from (1) -strongly disagree to (5)-strongly agree) (Azizollah et al., 2013). The questionnaires were confirmed to be reliable and valid based on appropriate tests, and the data was analyzed to answer research question by use of both descriptive and inferential techniques (Azizollah et al., 2013).

            While this study had sufficient backing from previous research on the vulnerability of nurses to stress and the general influence of stress on occupational performance, the study hypothesized on the significance of the relationship between job stress and nurses performance. The variables used to measure occupational stress were change, relationship, support, control, demand, and role. These statistical analysis methods were the most appropriate for the research since the research question is on association between the variables under study (Azizollah et al., 2013).

Correlation and regression analysis were utilized in examining the relationship and its nature. Results of correlation analysis indicated that there is a significant relationship between each of the components of stress and performance (p-value < 0.05). The coefficients are as follows: change and nurses’ performance (r = -0.53), relationship and nurses’ performance (r = 0.31), support and nurses’ performance (r = 0.29), control and nurses’ performance (r = -0.39), demand and nurses’ performance (r = -0.44), role and nurses’ performance (r = -0.28). As expected, relationship and support exhibited positive correlation with job performance. On the other hand, change, control, demand, and role components had a negative association with performance. The components of stress that posted positive correlation with nurse performance are inverse components of stress (their reduction are causative of stress), while the negative correlates of job satisfaction are actually increment components of stress (their increase increases stress) (Azizollah et al., 2013). 

The study found a general correlation of -1.42 between job stress and performance, which was significant (p-value = 0.001 < 0.05) (Azizollah et al., 2013). This indicates that generally, occupational stress and job performance in the nursing occupation have an inverse relationship. With the increase of stress, job performance reduces. This is consistent with the array of research expeditions that have affirmed that occupational stress indeed affects performance. Wu (2011), for example, categorically established an effectual association between stress and job performance while opining on the role of emotional intelligence on job performance. Further, there has been established, in a rare research expedition, that stress also affects nurses’ care behavior – which is an important factor in nurses practice ethics (Sarafis et al., 2016).

Based on the importance of occupational performance in the healthcare domain, this study’s impact in nursing is indeed vast. The aid it offers in strategy laying, individual performance, and even management of healthcare human resource is immense. In order to improve the quality of healthcare in a facility, nurses’ performance is integrally embedded in the influencing factors. The necessity to avert the causative factors of occupational stress in the nursing practice, as much as possible, has an extreme importance whose significance progresses with time. In modern times where the role of a nurse in healthcare is increasingly integral, it is necessary to optimize nurses’ performance while dealing with the increasing prevalence of healthcare needs. The modus operandi of every nurse should be boosted in a working environment that is a stress-free as possible to thus boost performance. On this course, certain propositions include apparent organizational assistance, management support work, reducing understaffing, among other specific stratagems can aid aversion of the phenomenon.

Conclusion

While stress has been proven to be good for increasing employee performance, the good level is bounded, excess of which is a detriment to this performance. The increasing prevalence of occupational stress in the nursing profession has led to various drastic measures like quitting by individuals, a factor which actually increases organizational stress, but with the research’s findings strategies can be laid to curb the anomaly. While not being limited to assessing the influence of stress on nurses’ performance, this study is replicable for improving understanding of the phenomenon.