An exploration of hospital nurse manager job stress and job stress coping strategies

Background: Understanding the approaches that nursing managers take to managing and coping with job stress is important due to their important role in hospital management and administration. Few empirical articles have investigated this issue. Purpose: This study investigated job stressors and stress coping strategies in hospital nursing managers. Methods: This study used a convenience sampling method and included 275 nursing managers currently working at medical centers or regional hospitals in central Taiwan. This research used three research instruments. A demographic data survey questionnaire collected data on subject age, gender, education level, marital status, hospital type, years of employment, professional position and advanced nursing education status; A job stress questionnaire covered the four dimensions of professional knowledge, interpersonal relationships, workload and role stress; A coping strategies questionnaire covered the four dimensions of problem solving, rational thinking, support seeking and emotional adjustment. Results: The highest and lowest job stressor scores were, respectively, "workload" and "interpersonal relationships". Subject job stressors related significantly to age, education level, hospital type, years of employment, and number of years in current position. The highest and lowest coping strategy scores were, respectively, "rational thinking" and "emotional adjustment". Subject coping strategies related significantly to education level and management position. Conclusions / Implications for practice: Study findings can help hospital administrators understand nursing managers' job stressors and coping strategies. They can also help medical institutions design appropriate intervention programs to measure and reduce nursing manager job stress. This study can thus help improve the general well being of nursing managers and promote a positive working environment.