Abstract:

This study was conducted to ascertain the relationship between work stress and job satisfaction among nurses in Federal Psychiatric Hospital, Calabar, Cross River State. Four research questions were raised and four hypotheses to give the study a sense of direction. A descriptive cross-sectional design was adopted and data collected through structured and validated questionnaire with high coefficient reliability of 0.86. Using a purposive sampling technique, all the 105 nurses in Federal Psychiatric Hospital were used for the study. Data collected were presented and analysed using frequency table, simple percentages, and weighted mean score. The hypotheses were tested using independent t-test with aid of Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. Findings revealed that there is significant relationship between working conditions regarding remuneration and availability of working resources; workload regarding attention to many patients; shift duty/long working hours; role conflict/ambiguity in tem of ambiguous organizational goals; and job satisfaction among psychiatric nurses in Federal Psychiatric Hospital, Calabar. This implies that nurses should ensure mutual relationship and understanding between in-mates, colleagues and management bodies enabling dialogue for good working condition and provision of tools. Following the findings, it was recommended among other things that; government should embark on recruitment of more male psychiatric nurses to relieve workload on nursing staff and increase nurse to patient ratio in the hospital for effective health care delivery.

Keywords: For the purpose of this study, these key terms are defined thus:

·     Work: The activities carried out by nurses in the clinical area which are aimed at providing nursing care for the patients.

·     Stress: Any work activity which has unpleasant emotional or physical effect on nurses.

·     Stressor: Any life event or work process that causes stress to a nurse. In this study, the stressors include: working conditions, workload, shift duty/long working hours, and role conflict/ambiguity.

·     Workload: The amount of work compared to the workforce.

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