The association between occupational stress and psychosomatic wellbeing among Chinese nurses

Abstract

Occupational stress impairs nurses’ psychosomatic wellbeing, which includes anxiety, depression, sleep quality, and somatic symptoms; however, few studies have focused on the associations between the subdimensions of occupational stress [workload and time pressure (WTP), professional and career issues (PC), patient care and interaction (PCI), interpersonal relationships and management problems (IRMP), resource and environment problem (REP)] and psychosomatic wellbeing among nurses in China. This study thus examined these associations using a cross-sectional survey in Sichuan, China. An online application was devised to collect data, with the scales of sociodemographic and occupational variables, Nurse Job Stressor Questionnaire, the 9- and 15-item Patient Health Questionnaires, the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Investigation was completed by 2889 nurses (96.7% women; mean age = 31.20 ± 6.72 years). Relationships were identified by correlation and multivariate regression analyses. Most (68.3%) nurses had high levels of occupational stress. The multivariate analyses revealed that WTP was correlated with anxiety (P = .003). PC was associated with depression (P = .033) and sleep quality (P = .078). PCI was correlated with anxiety (P = .031) and somatic symptoms (P = .005). IRMP was associated with anxiety (P = .018), depression (P = .001), and somatic symptoms (P = .025). Lastly, REPs had nonsignificant relationships with depression, anxiety, sleep quality, and somatic symptoms. In sum, nurses had high levels of occupational stress; therefore, a series of strategies should be implemented to help nurses cope with the above issues, which could promote nurses’ psychosomatic wellbeing, and have a buffering effect on nurses’ depression, anxiety, poor sleep quality, and somatic symptoms.