Abstract
The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between the occupational stress, sense of coherence, coping, burnout and work engagement of registered nurses in South Africa. A cross-sectional survey design was used. The study population consisted of 818 registered nurses. The Nursing Stress Inventory, the Orientation to Life Questionnaire, the COPE, the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey, and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale were administered. The results show that the experience of depletion of emotional resources and feelings of depersonalisation by registered nurses were associated with stress due to job demands and a lack of organisational support, focus on and ventilation of emotions as a coping strategy, and a weak sense of coherence. Work engagement was predicted by a strong sense of coherence and approach-coping strategies.
Highlights
A stable and productive health service is of vital importance to any country
The Cronbach alpha coefficients of all the measuring instruments are considered to be acceptable compared to the guideline of α > 0.70 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994), except for focus on and ventilation of emotions as a coping strategy, where the Cronbach alpha coefficient is slightly lower than 0.70 (i.e. 0.67). This correlates with the results reported by Carver et al (1989), who reported alpha coefficients for the Coping Orientation for Problem Experienced Questionnaire (COPE) ranging from 0.45 to 0.92. It appears that Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)-HSS, Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), NSI, COPE and Orientation to Life Questionnaire (OLQ) have acceptable levels of reliability
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between occupational stress, sense of coherence, coping, burnout and work engagement in registered nurses in South Africa, using a cross-sectional survey design
Summary
A stable and productive health service is of vital importance to any country. The health service would include the nursing profession, which comprises by far the greatest component of this service sector. Nursing is seen as a stressful and emotionally demanding profession (Carson, Bartlett & Croucher 1991; Coffey & Coleman, 2001; Fagin, Brown, Bartlett, Leary & Carson, 1995; Schaufeli & Janczur, 1994; Snellgrove, 1998), which makes nurses exceptionally susceptible to burnout. Occupational stress has several negative effects, such as impaired performance and effectiveness, reduction in productivity, diminishing levels of customer service, health problems, absenteeism, turnover, industrial accidents, alcohol and drug usage, purposefully destructive behaviours, e.g. spreading of rumours and stealing (Happel, Pinikahana & Martin, 2003; Perrewé, 1991; Quick, Quick, Nelson & Hurrell, 1997; Wright & Smye, 1996), and even suicide (McGrath, Reid & Boore, 2003). Stress is seen by Cherniss (1995) as the main contributing factor to burnout
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