Effect of Ghanaian Nurses’ Mental Stress on Their Job Satisfaction: The Role of Workload and Time Pressure

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify factors constituting workload, time pressure, mental stress and their job satisfaction of Ghanaian nurses and also to provide an understanding of the influencing relationships among these factors. Guided by theoretical concepts in work physiology and occupational health, a standardized questionnaire was adapted and used to collect data from 300 nurses in four public hospitals in Accra. The collated data was analyzed using factor, correlation and regression analysis. The results from the factor analysis showed that out of the six factors tested, only one was found to be predictive of time pressure (that is high time pressure). For mental stress, out of the nine factors tested only four were found to be predictive (that is psychological stress load, mental load, effort load and time load). For workload, out of six factors tested, only two were predictive (that is demand of work and effort load). For job satisfaction, out of six factors tested, only two were predictive (that is (1) Pay, organizational policies and professional status and (2) task requirement, interaction and autonomy). It was found from the correlation analysis that, mental stress and time pressure have a significant relationship with job satisfaction but workload does not have any significant relationship with job satisfaction, workload was also found to have a significant relationship with mental stress among Ghanaian nurses. Also, the regression results revealed that the presence of increased mental stress was found to decrease job satisfaction. When time pressure was introduced mental stress increased resulting in the reduction of job satisfaction while when workload was introduced, mental stress and job satisfaction neither increased nor decreased. It is concluded that the presence of time pressure increases mental stress while it decreases job satisfaction among Ghanaian nurses. It is therefore recommended that policies should be put in place to limit the number of patients seen by a nurse during a shift so as to reduce time pressure on them which will increase their job satisfaction.