LEVEL OF STRESS AMONG STAFF NURSES WORKING IN EMERGENCY AND GENERAL WARDS OF SKIMS HOSPITAL; A COMPARATIVE STUDY.

Background: Workplace Stress among nurses is a global problem. The success in delivering quality patient care depends on the efficiency and motivation of the nursing personnel. Stress has become one of the most serious health issues in the modern world. Emergency nurses deal with many challenges which cannot be predicted including sudden death of patients, trauma patients, overcrowding, witnessing aggression, violence etc. There can be many factors that helps to explain why nurses working in emergency wards have higher level of stress than nurses working in general wards, but before assessing the factors causing stress it is important to become aware of whether the nurses are perceiving stress or not.Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the level of stress among staff nurses working in emergency and general wards of SKIMS Hospital. Material and methods: A comparative descriptive design was used. Sample of 120 staff nurses were selected randomly from the list of 356 staff nurses working in the SKIMS hospital with the use of a probability simple random sampling technique. Perceived stress scale was used for measuring stress level among staff nurses. Results: In emergency wards 30 (50%) of staff nurses had severe level of stress, whereas 27 (45%) of staff nurses had moderate level of stress and 3(5%) were under mild level of stress, while as in general wards majority 39(65%) of staff nurses had moderate level of stress scores, whereas 12(20%) were under severe level of stress scores and 9 (15%) were under mild level of stress. So, there is significant difference in level of stress between staff nurses working in emergency and general wards (P = 0.002 < 0.05).Conclusion; In emergency wards majority of staff nurses had severe level of stress whereas in general wards majority of staff nurses had moderate level of stress. High levels of stress result in staff burnout and turnover and adversely affect patient care.