Occupational stress management among nurses in selected hospital in Benin city, Edo state, Nigeria

Stress in nurses is an endemic problem. It contributes to health problems in nurses and decreases their efficiency. Documenting the causes and management of stress in any healthcare unit is essential for successful interventions. This study aimed at determining the occupational stress management strategies among nurses in selected Hospital Benin City. A 45-item questionnaire was developed and administered. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 100 nurses in the selected Hospital. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data generated. Result of the study reveals that majority of the nurses were females, of senior cadre and were married. It was also revealed that the major causes of stress identified by the nurses were poor salary (82%), handling a large number of patients alone, lack of incentives (83%) and job insecurity among others. The major types of stress experienced were, headache (49%) as physical stress; anger as emotional stress; lack of concentration and forgetfulness were the most psychological stress experienced in the ward. The major occupational stress management strategies were identification of the sources of stress and avoidance of unnecessary stress (90%), altering the situation, expressing their feelings instead of bottling them up, managing their time better (94%), and adjusting their standard and attitude. They sometimes exercise and relax. There was no statistical relationship between age, sex, salary earned and types of stress experienced as p-value > 0.05, but there was relationship between rank and the type of stress experienced as P<0.05 for the emotional type of stress experienced. It is recommended that nurses should adapt a positive ways of managing stress to keep up optimal care of the clients/patients and nurses’ executives should help create an adequate stress-free environment for nurses. In conclusion, the study revealed the occupational stress management strategies adopted by nurses in Central Hospital Benin City. Health care professionals are more susceptible to occupational stress because of intense daily activity. Nurses are not ever thought as needing help but only as the care givers, applying some techniques for preventing stress burnout among nurses are now more important than we ever though