PATTERNS AND PROFILES OF NURSING JOB-RELATED STRESS AMONG NURSES WORKING AT HEALTH CARE FACILITIES IN DUBAI, UAE

Background: Costs of job stress can involve absenteeism, employee turnovers, short- and longterm disabilities, medication expenses related to psychotherapeutic medications, workplace accidents, and worker's compensation claims and lawsuits.

Objectives: To study the patterns and profiles of nursing related stress and associated factors among nurses working at health care facilities in Dubai.

Methods: A cross sectional design was carried out at government and private hospitals in Dubai. The data collection tool is the "Expanded Nursing Stress Scale", (ENSS). The complet ENSS contained 57 items in nine subscales. The sample size from private hospitals were 185 (63.8%) nurses, and from governmental hospitals were 110 (36.2%) nurses.

Results: Distribution of the participants according to age and total stress, where it shows that nurses reporting no stress in their jobs are more from nurses of 36+ years (83.4%). while nurses who reported mild and moderate amounts of stress increasingly came from nurses of 36+ years 57.6% and 55.4% respectively, it can be seen that mostly nurses less than 36 years reported severe stress in their jobs (86%). distribution of the participants according to gender and total stress. As it demonstrates that most of the males sample nurses reported moderate stress, while most of the female sample nurses reported mild amounts of stress. Although its statistically not significant. severe stress was found to be higher among nurses in private sector (60%) compared to that among nurses in governmental sector (40%). that nurses reporting mild, moderate and severe stress levels came increasingly from those with bachelor degree and above 64.2%, 73.8%, and 80% respectively, compared to 35.8%, 26.2% and 20% respectively from the nurses holding below bachelor’s degree.

Conclusion: Nursing job related stress proved to be framed by certain patterns and profiles, and there are always factors steering stress patterns among nurses at work environment. Understanding the factors affecting stress profile among nurses working at health care facilities will be always key for creating stress free working environment.