A Cross Sectional Study Evaluating Psychosocial Job Stress and Health Risk in Emergency Department Nurses

Rupkatha Bardhan, Karen Heaton, Melissa Davis, Peter Chen, Dale A. Dickinson and Claudiu T. Lungu
Additional contact information
Rupkatha Bardhan: Department of Occupational Safety and Health, Murray State University, Murray, KY 42071, USA
Karen Heaton: School of Nursing, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA
Melissa Davis: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA
Peter Chen: Department of Psychology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA
Dale A. Dickinson: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA
Claudiu T. Lungu: Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 18, 1-17

Abstract: Nurses experience psychosocial work stress that may negatively affect physical and mental health over time. In this cross-sectional study we investigated prevalence of job stress and oxidative stress in nurses, and determined if significant relationships exist between higher job stress scores and demographic factors and working conditions. Emergency department nurses ( n = 42) were recruited from a University Hospital following Institutional Review Board approval. Job stress indicators, effort–reward ratio and overcommitment were evaluated from survey questionnaires using the effort–reward imbalance model, and associations with age, sex, body mass index, and working conditions were measured by logistic regression analysis. Oxidative stress biomarkers, 8-isoprostane, malondialdehyde, and antioxidant levels were measured from urine specimens. Job stress was prevalent with effort–reward ratio > 1 in 93% and overcommitment > 50 in 83% of the study participants. Age, body mass index, years of experience, weekend work, work hours per week, and shift work showed strong associations with effort–reward ratio and overcommitment scores. Malondialdehyde was higher in participants with high overcommitment. We report that psychosocial job stress is prevalent among nurses, as revealed by the high effort–reward and overcommitment scores. Job stress may be reduced through implementation of appropriate stress reduction interventions.

Keywords: nurses; job stress; oxidative stress; effort–reward imbalance; lipid peroxidation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/18/3243/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/18/3243/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:18:p:3243-:d:264009

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().