Stress among nurses working in intensive care units (ICUs) - Poster presentation

ABSTRACT

ICU nurses are subject to great stress in view of the serious nature of the patients and intensive monitoring and the shift work. We designed a study to assess the effect of some of these potential stressors "working" or "nonworking origin", as well as to determine those working stimuli which produce anxiety. A study was done among 14 nurses (age 23 to 33, 1-7 years of experience) from different ICUs. Arterial blood pressure (ABP) and heart rate (HR) were measured twice daily in 8 different working days, along with body temperature (BT). Results of the survey were analyzed using Square Chi test (p=0.05) and the other variables through the Analysis of Variance test (p=0.001). The results of ABP, HR and BT showed no differences neither each day nor among the 8 different days. Only three stimuli of any origin showed significance: loss of interest to family activities or the job, the feeling of tension or anxiety, and non-serious condition of diseases. The most anxiogenic stimuli were scarcity of supplies and the shortage of qualified staff. These results agree with previous findings in relation with the low disturbing effects of working conditions in ICU and some non-labour conditions. The most anxiogenic stimuli were related to the responsibility and qualification of the surveyed nursing staff (AU)