ABSTRACT

Aim and objectivities: The purpose of this study was to describe the perceived effects of occupational stress of nurses working in intensive care units on their life situation from their own perspective.

Background: Nurses’ health connects their work quality directly. Lots of researches reported high level of occupational stress of nurses working in intensive care unit, but no research about how they perceive the effects of occupational stress on their life situation. This issue is related with how to improve nurses’ health, as well as those working in caring sciences and public health.

Design: A descriptive qualitative study with open-ended questions interview.

Method: The study was implemented by qualitative content analysis with interviewed eight nurses working in intensive care unit in one hospital in the south ofSweden. All data were analyzed as a whole among researchers.

Result: Nurses perceive occupational stress affects their life situation on causing problem of health, involving their personal privacy and social life, and influencing their awareness and cognition for health and life.

Conclusion: By exploring nurses’ perception for the effect of occupational stress on their life situation, it finds nurses are unaware of the effects of occupational stress sufficiently and they are unclear of the division between working and private life. Both two reasons increase the difficulty of nurses handling occupational stress.

Relevance to clinical practice: Nurses have high risk of getting more health problem. Lack of nurses is going to worsen in intensive care unit, and the cost of health care can increase, and the safety of nursing can be affected in the future if the importance of the effect of occupational stress on nurses’ life situation is not considered sufficiently.