Pages: 6-13

Abstract

Introduction: the nurses with a key role in health organizations experience high levels of stress. This reduces the quality of nursing care work; therefore, the study was conducted to examine the occupational stressors among the nurses working in educational centers of Urmia. Materials and Methods: The study is a descriptive research study done on 240 nurses from educational centers of Urmia University of Medical Sciences selected randomly. Data was collected through a questionnaire containing demographic information and Gray-Toft and Anderson's Nursing Occupational Stress Questionnaire. Then, the data was analyzed in SPSS21 and frequency distribution statistical methods. Results: The results showed that 51% of the nurses had high occupational stress, 46% moderate stress and 2.9% low. The most frequent stressors were patients' suffering and death (3.28 ± 0.85), workload (3.14 ± 0.82), uncertainty about treatment (3.11 ± 0.81), conflict with nurses (3.07 ± 0.93), conflict with doctors (3.04±0.88), lack of knowledge (2.73 ± 0.86), and lack of support (2.52 ± 0.95). Discussion and Conclusion: The results indicated that the nurses have high levels of stress; so, it is necessary that all officials pay more attention to the reduction of occupational stresses of this stratum and apply the right methods to tackle this critical issue.