Medical

Communication

Biosci. Biotech. Res. Comm. 9(3): 435-438 (2016)

The relationship of job stress with self-ef cacy

among nurses working in hospitals of Semnan

University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Jamileh Mahdizadeh

, Faezeh Daihimfar

and Mehdi Kahouei*

Medical Faculty, Semnan University of Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran.

Student Research Committee, Nursing and Allied Health Faculty, Semnan University of Medical Sciences,

Semnan, Iran

Social Determinant of Health Research Center, Nursing and Allied Health Faculty, Semnan University of

Medical Sciences, Semnan, Iran

Department of Entomology and Agril. Zoology,Institute of Agricultural

Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi-221005, India

ABSTRACT

The individual’s perception of stress is essential in its experience and on the other hand, the same stressful events

create different effects in people, so the question is whether capable nurses have more or less stress? This study was

conducted to determine the relationship between self-ef cacy and job stress among nurses. Participants in this study

were nursing staffs of af liated hospitals of Semnan University of Medical Sciences in Iran in 2015-2016. The results

showed that 62.7% of the nursing staffs who had not self-ef cacy, had mild job stress and between the levels of job

stress and self-ef cacy of the participants was signi cant (P<0.001). There were signi cant negative relationships

among role overload (B=- 0.26, P=0.003), role insuf ciency (B=-0 .58, P<0.001), role ambiguity (B=-0.455, P<0.001),

role boundary (B=-0.706, P<0.001) and responsibility (B=-0.207, P=0.022) with the participants’ self-ef cacy. The

results of this study showed that job stress among nurses in uences on the personal, emotional and cognitive effec-

tiveness in nurses and can bring some organizational outcomes such as reduced properly function in the workplace.

KEY WORDS: JOB STRESS, SELF-EFFICACY, NURSES, IRAN

435

ARTICLE INFORMATION:

*Corresponding Author: mkahouei@yahoo.com

Received 27

July, 2016

Accepted after revision 7

Sep, 2016

BBRC Print ISSN: 0974-6455

Online ISSN: 2321-4007

Thomson Reuters ISI ESC and Crossref Indexed Journal

NAAS Journal Score 2015: 3.48 Cosmos IF : 4.006

reserved.

Online Contents Available at: http//www.bbrc.in/

436 THE RELATIONSHIP OF JOB STRESS WITH SELF-EFFICACY AMONG NURSES BIOSCIENCE BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

Mahdizadeh, Daihimfar and Kahouei

INTRODUCTION

Health care workers experience stress in proportion to

their job involvement, which among them the nurses are

the largest service providers in the health system (Yazdi

Moghaddam, 2009) and in Iran, nurses account about

80 per cent of employment in the health care system

and nursing tasks (Farsi and et al., 2010). Nurses are at

the forefront of health care providers (Toloei and et al.,

2006), and in jobs where human contact is normally

more important, there are more stressful situations due

to unpredictable circumstances (Gholam Nezhad and

Nikpeyma, 2009).

On the other hand, apart from stress, self-ef cacy is

also of great importance in the nursing profession. Self-

ef cacy is a kind of personality factor having an impact

on dealing with environmental pressures. It is also an

important and effective concept in Bandura’s social cog-

nitive theory (2000). In this theory, cognitive processes

in human behavior play a decisive role. People with high

self-ef cacy choose more challenging to moderately

dif cult goals, feel more relaxed, believe in themselves

more, and show more insistent efforts (Pajares, 2002).

Since long-term job stresses lead to burnout, emotional

con ict, personality disorder, loss of sense of individual

acceptance of the work of other individuals in the work

environment (Motie and et al., 2010).

Thus, several studies have been conducted on occu-

pational stress among nurses. For example, Hayes et

al. (2015) in a study of over 194 public hospital nurses

in Thailand concluded that 26/2% of the studied sub-

jects suffered from severe job stress. In the study carried

out by Motie et al. (2010), it was shown that 51/7 of

studied nurses had moderate stress and %11 had severe

stress. Research shows that occupational self-ef cacy is

considered an important predictor of job performance

(Judge and Bono, 2001).

In this regard, some earlier studies have been con-

ducted on the ef cacy of nurses, Olson et al. (2012),

where it has been shown that the individual’s self-ef -

cacy beliefs has in uence on the behavior, effort and

the time spent for dealing with resistance against stress.

Some studies have also shown the association between

increased ef cacy and improved performance of nurses.

For instance, studies by Lim and et al. (2004), indicate

that understanding the synergies in the self-ef cacy of

nurses can improve nursing and professional measures

and ultimately leads to improved clinical practices to

patient care in the nursing profession. The above studies

show that stress status and self-ef cacy among nurses

are frequently studied, yet the relationship between these

two categories among nurses has not been analyzed. On

the one hand, because stress is not always caused by

stressful sources, but the individual’s perception of stress

is essential in its experience and on the other hand, the

same stressful events create different effects in people,

so the question is whether capable nurses have more or

less stress? This study was conducted to determine the

relationship between self-ef cacy and job stress among

nurses.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Participants in the present study were nursing staffs of

af liated hospitals of Semnan University of Medical Sci-

ences in Iran in 2015-2016. Census sampling was used in

this study. A total of 532 questionnaires were distributed;

424 were returned, which represented a response rate of

79.6%. Ethics approval was obtained from the Semnan

University of Medical Ethics Committee (IR.SEMUMS.

REC.1394.196). A covering letter was prepared for dis-

tribution with the survey document, which described the

purposes of the study and explained that a response to

the survey would indicate the consent of the participant

to take part in the research. It also assured participants

of the con dentiality of their responses.

Two questionnaires were used in this study. It was

divided into  ve sections. The  rst questionnaire was

Osipow’s job stress questionnaire. It has been included

60 questions and six sections such as role overload, role

insuf ciency, role ambiguity, role boundary, responsibil-

ity and physical environmental. The second question-

naire was Scherer’s self-ef cacy questionnaire. It has

been included 17 questions. The participants’ attitudes

on each item were measured on a 5-point Likert type

scale, where very low=1, low=2, somewhat=3, high=4

and very high=5. The questionnaires have been distrib-

uted and returned to the researcher within 72 hours.

Means and standard deviations, in dependent- sam-

ples T and liner regression were used to analyze the data.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

78.1% was female, 94.6% had bachelor degree and

age average was 32.6. (Table1) 62.7% of the nursing

staffs who had not self-ef cacy, had mild job stress

and between the levels of job stress and self-ef cacy

of the participants was signi cant (P<0.001). (Table2)

There were signi cant negative relationships among

role overload (B=- 0.26, P=0.003), role insuf ciency

(B=-0 .58, P<0.001), role ambiguity (B=-0.455, P<0.001),

role boundary (B=-0.706, P<0.001) and responsibility

(B=-0.207, P=0.022) with the participants’ self-ef cacy.

(Table3)

Results of the present study showed that there was a

signi cant relationship between the level of job stress

and self-ef cacy in the nurses. The  ndings suggest that

BIOSCIENCE BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS THE RELATIONSHIP OF JOB STRESS WITH SELF-EFFICACY AMONG NURSES 437

Mahdizadeh, Daihimfar and Kahouei

Table1: Nursing staffs’ characteristics

Characteristics Groups N %

sex Male 93 21.9

Female 330 78.1

Education Bachelor degree 401 94.6

Master degree 22 5.4

Age (Year) *32.6±9.9

Work experiences

(Year)

* 8.82±7.54

*Mean ± SD

the level of job stress in uences on nurses’ ability to

control and deal with problems. In addition, the results

showed that the increase in the role overload of nurses

contributes to their 0.26% reduced ef cacy. Nurses

experience stress if they do not have enough time to do

their psychological support for patients or the number of

employees is not suf cient to cover the work (Dickinson

and Wright, 2008).

In a study by Lee and Wrong (2002), the main stress-

ful factors were workload and responsibilities of the

role. The results indicated that as the amount of work

by nurses at the same time increases, their beliefs about

their ability to cope in certain situations and deal with

problems are reduced (Burgess and et al., 2010; Brackett

and et al., 2010). The results showed that the nurses’

feelings of their role insuf ciency contribute to %58 in

their reduced self-ef cacy impact.

The data of an investigation, by Yousse an et al.

(2015), showed that the mean score of role insuf ciency

among operating room staff was 33.6. Also the study

carried out by Bahrami et al. (2012), showed that 64.9%

of self-insuf cient nurses had stress. In another study by

Abdi and Shahbazi (2002) 54.1% of nurses were found to

be suffering from stress in this area. The results showed

that when nurses feel that their work environment needs

are inconsistent with their skills and education, they are

less able to control stressful events in their life and can-

not in uence or manage the stressful situations in order

to realize their desirable future and prevent adverse out-

comes. This situation rears worries, disappointments and

discouragement among nurses (Bandura, 2000). Results

showed that increasing role ambiguity in nurses to 0.455

contributes in reducing self-ef cacy. Yousse an et al’s

study (2015) also showed that the average stress among

nurses in the operating room was 36.59.

Recently, Raj (2016) also found that 40.5% of ICU

nurses in hospitals suffer from role ambiguity. The

results suggest that if nurses are ambiguous in their

nursing tasks, and are not able to properly assess them,

or in other words they are unaware of the priorities and

expectations of the workplace and benchmark value, it

can lead to nurses to choose simple purposes instead of

challenging or fairly dif cult ones. It means that they

are not able to visualize assignments as challenges that

must dominate over them, hence they will not feel calm;

they cannot believe themselves more and show less

effort in their profession. As a result, they cannot take

advantage of more useful learning strategies, their pow-

erful abilities for remembering and reminding to func-

tion better in their assignments (Pajares, 2002).

The results of this study showed that the role bound-

ary contributes 0.706 to reduced self-ef cacy among

nurses. Bahrami et al.(2012), found that male nurses

were more stressful than female nurses in terms of role

boundary. Abdi and Shahbazi (2002) found that 62.5%

of ICU nurses were within the range of stressful occupa-

tional role boundary. The results suggest that if nurses

feel that there is a con ict between their work conscience

and expected role, they feel that they are no longer able

to do any successful task and lose the required motiva-

tion to do anything (Pajares , 2002). So the nurses can-

not properly judge on their ability to perform the tasks

speci ed in the framework of their professional career

(Betz and Hackett, 1981).

Table2: The relationship between self-ef cacy and

job stress level of the participants

Self-ef ciency

Job stress level

Is there self-ef cacy? P-value

N (%)

Yes

N (%)

P<0.001

Normal 10 (16.9) 26 (7.1)

Mild 37 (62.7) 295 (80.8)

Moderate 10 (16.9) 44 (12.1)

Table 3: Regression between job stress components with the nursing staffs’ self-ef cacy

Job stress components R

Adjusted R

F B SD Beta T P-value

Role overload 0.021 0.019 9.025 -0.26 0.086 -0.145 -3.004 0.003

Role insuf ciency 0.08 0.078 38.925 -0.58 0.095 -0.284 -6.077 P<0.001

Role ambiguity 0.083 0.081 38.12 -0.455 0.074 -0.288 -6.174 P<0.001

Role boundary 0.09 0.088 41.624 -0.706 0.109 -0.30 -6.452 P<0.001

Responsibility 0.012 0.01 5.296 -0.207 0.09 -0.111 -2.301 0.022

Physical environmental 0.000 -0.002 0.204 -0.03 0.067 -0.022 -0.451 0.652

438 THE RELATIONSHIP OF JOB STRESS WITH SELF-EFFICACY AMONG NURSES BIOSCIENCE BIOTECHNOLOGY RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

Mahdizadeh, Daihimfar and Kahouei

The  ndings of this study showed that the sense of

responsibility among nurses contributes to 0.207 in

reducing their self-ef cacy. Lee and Wong found that

accountability was a most important job stress among

nurses (Lee and Wong, 2002). Recently Raj (2016) has

showed that 48.9% of ICU nurses had stress in terms of

responsibility.

Bahramie et al. (2012), had earlier found that male

nurses had more stress than female nurses in terms of

responsibility role. The  ndings suggest that if nurses

in the their workplace feel more stress than their coun-

terparts, or in other words they feel more ef ciency and

sense of responsibility for the welfare of others in the

workplace, this leads to more nurses do less effort to

cope and deal with their problems, and recognize them-

selves weak and inef cient and easily give up and feel

depressed, anxious and hopeless.

CONCLUSION

The results of this study showed that job stress among

nurses in uences on the personal, emotional and cogni-

tive effectiveness in nurses and can bring some organi-

zational outcomes such as reduced properly function in

the workplace. Ultimately, this situation can lead to an

increased absences, resignation, decreased job satisfac-

tion, organizational commitment in nurses. The results

of this study with the aim of the help to further under-

standing of personal risk and protective factors and

their mechanisms can be used in interference planning

so as to promote and protect the health of nurses against

stressors factors.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the Clinical Research Develop-

ment Unit of Kowsar and Amiralmomenin Educational,

Research and Therapeutic Centers of Semnan Uiversity

of Medical Sciences for providing facilities to this work.

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