Factors Influencing Stress Among Psychiatric Nurses at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: Mental Health Professionals have been known to have stressful work settings. Psychiatric nurses have been particularly identified consistently with an enormous level of stress which has been known to destroy their performance, job satisfaction and their overall attitude to work. Harmful effects of work-related stress are poor health care service delivery, dissatisfaction with one’s job, poor attendance to work, mental health diseases, and mortality occurring at a fast rate, including deaths from suicide and stress-related diseases like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and hypertension etc. Psychiatric nurses should be in a healthy form and state of mind without any form of apprehensions and worries for them to execute their duties effectively and well. The study sought to assess factors influencing stress among mental health or psychiatric nurses at the Accra psychiatric hospital in Accra Ghana. Methodology: A quantitative cross-sectional study design. Random sampling method was the method used to select one hundred and fifty five (155) psychiatric nurses, from the Accra psychiatric hospital for the study. The Mental Health Professionals Stress Scale (MHPSS) questionnaire was used for data collection. Descriptive, bivariate Fisherman’s exact Chi square test, Pearson’s correlation coefficient and linear regression were used for data analysis. Results: The study’s findings revealed that most of the psychiatric nurses (75%) at the Accra Psychiatric hospital were stressed due to their work. The study also revealed that there was no statistically significant relation between socio-demographic characteristics of psychiatric nurses and their level of stress. Age, sex, marital status, and years of working experience were found not to influence stress in this group. It was also found out that workload was a major factor that influenced stress among psychiatric nurses at the Accra Psychiatric hospital. Lack of resources, client related difficulties and home-work conflict were however found not to influence stress in the psychiatric nurses at the Accra Psychiatric hospital. Conclusion: To minimize the level of stress in psychiatric nurses at the Accra Psychiatric hospital there is the need for measures to be taken and policies put in place like training more psychiatric nurses, building more psychiatric hospitals and reducing the number of patients handled by nurses to ensure that workload at the Accra psychiatric hospital is reduced to the barest minimum to improve upon the physical and the mental wellbeing of psychiatric nurses and the wellbeing of their patients.