Original scientific paper

STRESS FACTORS OF NURSES IN COVID DEPARTMENTS

Kristina Hanžek orcid.org/0000-0001-7358-9387 ; Clinic for Neurology, University Hospital Centre Zagreb, Kišpatićeva 12, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia *
Vesna Bratić ; Clinic for Anesthesoiology, Reanimatology, Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Therapy, University Hospital Centre Zagreb, Kišpatićeva 12, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia
Anita Lukić ; Department of Anesthesiology, Reanimatology and Intensive Care Medicine, General Hospital Varaždin, Ivana Meštrovića 1, 42 000 Varaždin, Croatia
Slobodan Mihaljević ; Clinic for Anesthesoiology, Reanimatology, Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Therapy, University Hospital Centre Zagreb, Kišpatićeva 12, 10 000 Zagreb, Croatia

* Corresponding author.

Abstract

Objective: To define the stressors that cause the highest level of stress in nurses / technicians
in COVID intensive care units (ICU) and regular COVID departments and to compare
stressors between these two departments.
Methods: For the purposes of the research, a validated questionnaire on stressors at the
workplace of hospital health workers was used. The questionnaires were distributed to 194
nurses/technicians, working in the COVID departments. The questionnaire consists of 3 parts;
the first part contains demographic data of the respondents, the second part of the
questionnaire consists of 34 questions that describe certain stress factors and are answers are
offered on a Likert - type scale and the last part of the questionnaire consists of 3 open-ended
questions to which respondents can add stressors to which they are exposed, which were not
previously mentioned.
Results: Differences were found in the level of education regarding the length of work with
COVID patients, nurses / technicians with a higher level of education worked longer in the
COVID department (p=0.043). No differences were found in the level of stress between
nurses/technicians working in the COVID department compared to the COVID ICU
(p=0.181). Among the factors that caused the highest level of stress are: work overload,
inadequate personal income, insufficient number of employees and everyday unpredictable
and unplanned situations.
Conclusion: Our results indicate that there is no difference in the level of stress between
nurses working in the COVID departments compared to nurses working in the COVID ICU.
Due to the high prevalence of stress among nurses who work with COVID patients, it is
necessary to monitor the symptoms of burnout and provide support in the workplace.
According to the results of our research, there is a need to optimize working conditions and
invest efforts in order to reduce the workload.

Keywords

stress; nurses; COVID; departments

Hrčak ID:

317548

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/317548

Publication date:

28.5.2024.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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