Stress adjustment and psychosomatic status among staff nurses

INTRODUCTION Stress refers to a dynamic interaction between the individual and the environment. In this interaction, demands, limitations and opportunities related to work may be perceived as threatening to surpass the individual's resources and skills. Kohler (2006) in case of disarrangement, this interaction may lead to cognitive altercations. According to various reports by occupational health institution, stress affects almost every profession. However, levels of stress are higher, and there are a greater number of sources of stress among health professional, especially nurses with negative consequences for their health (Demeuroti, 2000; Humpel and Caputi, 2001). Three main groups of stressors have been identified: I- academic stressors (testing and evaluation, fear of failure in training, problems with workload) II- clinical stressors (work, fear of making mistakes, negative responses to the death of suffering of patients, relationship with other members of the organization) III- personal and social stressors such as economic problems, imbalance between housework and hospital work ( Pryimachuk and Richards, 2007). An adjustment disorder is when people have an abnormal reaction to something that should be easy to adjust, like going to college is easy for some people but more difiScult for others. A few people just cannot adjust to their job and become severely depressed, anxious and phobic, like some stressfiil jobs like a pilot, nursing and etc. It is limited to the single situation and goes away if removed fi-om that situation. Stress in nurses is an endemic problem. It contributes to health problems in nurses and decreases their efficiency. Documenting the causes and extent of stress in any health care imit is essential for successfixl intervention. Establishing the existence and extent of work stress in nurses in a hospital setting, identified the major sources of stress, and finding the incidence of psychosomatic illness related to stress. Nurses who work in general hospitals face heavy workloads, occupational stress, ethical dilemmas, and conflicting demands as part of their everyday life; this may result in psychological stress, psychiatric morbidity and psychosomatic (Tyler, 1995). While these stressM conditions are well studied in general hospitals, less is known when