Work-Family Conflict and Coping Strategies among Nurses of a Selected Teaching Hospital in Pokhara, Nepal

Abstract

Introduction: Conflict between work and family is a consequence of incompatibilities between different roles of nurses. Nurses need to maintain equilibrium between the demands of work and family life because it is important for their physical and mental health. The elimination of distress is primarily achieved through effective coping. The objective of this study was to assess the status of work family conflict and coping strategies among nurses.
 Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among the nurses of a teaching hospital. Consecutive sampling was employed for the selection of 110 nurses. A self-administered structured questionnaire consisting of Carlson work family conflict scale and brief cope inventory was used for data collection. Work-Family Conflict was categorized into high and low level based on the mean score. Similarly, Coping Strategies was also categorized into high and low coping based on the mean score. A Chi-square test was used to find the association between variables and status of work-family conflict.
 Results: Nearly half (44.5%) of the nurses were suffering from high work family conflict and more than half (51.8%) of the participants were adopting high coping strategies. The religion(p=0.042) and schedule flexibility (p=0.026) were found to be significantly associated with the status of work-family conflict.
 Conclusion: The study concludes that almost half of the nurses working in teaching hospital suffer from high work-family conflict. So, there is a need to pay attention to the interface of work and family roles in order to reduce the conflict level and enhance work output among nurses.