Investigation of anxiety status and stress coping style in intensive care unit and general ward nurses

Abstract

Objective To explore the stress coping style and anxiety status of intensive care unit (ICU) and general ward( referred to as ward) nurses and the relation between stress coping style and anxiety status.Methods Totals of 84 ICU nurses and 77 ward nurses were investigated with general information questionnaire,coping style questionnaire(CSQ) and self rating anxiety scale ( SAS),and compared coping factors score,influencing factors,anxiety incidence and degree between ICU group and ward group,and analysed the relation between stress coping style and anxiety status.Results The “seeking help” (mature coping style)score of ICU nurses group was ( 0.694 ± 0.175 ) higher than ( 0.631 ± 0.212 ) in ward group,and the score of immature style “self-accusation” in ICU group was ( 0.262 ± 0.237 ) lower than ( 0.349 ± 0.262 ) in ward group,difference was statistically significant ( t =2.043,- 2.220,respectively; P ＜ 0.05 ).There was no significant difference in anxiety incidence was found,but anxiety score of ICU group was(39.37 ± 8.905 ) lower than ward group(42.53 ± 8.573 ),and the difference was statistically significant ( t =- 2.292,P ＜ 0.05 ).Coping style was no relation with age,professional title in ICU group( r =-0.060,-0.054,respectively;P ＞ 0.05),while coping style was negatively correlated with age,professional title in ward group( r =-0.237,-0.251,respectively; P ＜ 0.05 ).“solving problem”,“seeking help” were negatively correlated with anxiety (r=-0.267,-0.177,respectively; P ＜ 0.05 or P ＜ 0.01 ).“Shirk”,“self-accusation” and “illusion”( immature coping styles) and “rationalization” ( combined coping style) were positively correlated with anxiety (r =0.329,0.304,0.330,0.287,respectively;P ＜ 0.01 ).Conclusions Improving coping style of nurses can help to reduce nurses' psychological stress and anxiety. Key words: Nurse; Anxiety; Intensive care unit; Coping style ; General ward