Nurses’ job stress and its impact on quality of life and caring behaviors: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Nursing is considered a hard job and their work stresses can have negative effects on health and quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between job stress with quality of life and care behaviors in nurses. METHODS: This cross-sectional survey design study was performed with the participation of 115 nurses working in two hospitals. The nurses were selected via the availability sampling method and data were collected by demographic characteristics, nurses ‘job stress, quality of life (SF12), and Caring Dimension Inventory questionnaires. RESULTS: The mean (SD) total scores of job stress, quality of life and caring behavior were 2.77 (0.54), 56.64 (18.05) and 38.23 (9.39), respectively. There was a statistically significant and negative relationship between total job stress scores with quality of life (r = -0.44, P < 0.001, Medium effect) and caring behaviors (r=-0.26, P < 0.001, Small effect). Univariate linear regression showed that job stress alone could predict 27.9% of the changes in the total quality of life score (β =-0.534, SE = 0.051, R(2adj) = 0.279, P < 0.001) and 4.9% of the changes in the total score of caring behaviors (β =-0.098, SE = 0.037, R(2adj) = 0.049 P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Job stress has a negative effect on the quality of life related to nurses’ health. It can also overshadow the performance of care and reduce such behaviors in nurses, which may be one of the factors affecting the outcome of patients.