The effects of teaching stress management skills on the quality of life in ICU nurses

Introduction: Job stress is one of the main factors in decreasing productivity in organizations and the leading cause of psychosomatic disorders in personnel. Since job stress of nurses working in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) is considered as an important segment in health and medical systems, it significantly affects the quality of care and the nurse’s quality of life. To this end, the purpose of this research is to examine the effects of teaching stress management skills on the quality of life of the nurses working at ICU of the hospitals affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Methods: The subjects of the study consisted of 60 ICU nurses with the average stress score in Osipow job stress exam working at the hospitals affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The subjects were randomly assigned to two groups (30 in the case and 30 in the control group). The intervention was performed as a teaching stress management workshop for eight hours throughout two-days (four hours per day), and the nurses were followed up for two months. The data were collected through a two part questionnaire including demographic characteristics and WHO Quality of life BREF and were analyzed in SPSS software using paired t test, and t-test. Results: The findings showed that the nurses of both the case and control groups were homogeneous considering the demographic data such as age, sex, marital status, number of children, shift position, job satisfaction, number of working hours per week, work experience and the amount of income. Moreover, there was no significant difference between the mean score of the life quality before the intervention in both groups. But after the intervention, a significant increase was revealed in the mean score of the life quality of the case group as compared to that of the control group (P<0.0001). Conclusion: The findings revealed the efficacy of the stress management workshop in improving the life quality of ICU nurses. During one and two months after the intervention, the mean score of the quality of life had a significance increase compared to the stage before the intervention.Keywords: ICU, Nurse, Stress management, Quality of life