A descriptive study on stress and coping of nurses working in selected hospitals of Udupi and Mangalore districts Karnataka, India

Nursing is, by its very nature, an occupation subject to a high degree of stress. Every day the nurse confronts stark suffering, grief, and death as few other people do. Many nursing tasks are mundane and unrewarding. Many are by normal standards distasteful, even disgusting, others are often degrading; some are simply frightening.Workplace stress has long been recognised as a challenge for the nursing profession. Objectives of the study were To determine stress and coping of nurses and to find its association with selected variables. The study population consisted of 1040 registered nurses working in selected medical college hospitals and government hospitals of Udupi and Mangalore districts. Descriptive survey design was used to conduct the study.Purposive sampling was used to select the samples. Data were gathered by administering background proforma, stress and coping questionnaires. Majority of the subjects i.e. 60.38% experience low stress, 38.46% experience moderate stress and stress was high among 1.15% of the subjects. Significant association is found between stress and professional qualification, marital status, and area of work. There is significant association between coping and marital status. There was no significant association between coping and other demographic variables. Kruskal Wallis test computed for total years of experience (z = 21.21, p<0.001) and experience in current area (z = 11.07, p< 0.01) and coping of nurses was significant.