Abstract:
Stress management is a major challenge in South Africa, as well as other countries. Job
stress has negative effect on professional nurses ’rendering of patient care. They
should thus be able to manage their stress successfully in order to render quality
nursing care to the customers. The purpose of the study was to identify and describe
factors contributing to stressors among professional nurses, the effects of stressors on
the wellbeing of professional nurses and the management of stress by professional
nurses.
METHOD:
A quantitative, exploratory, descriptive design was utilised. The target population of this
research study comprised of all professional nurses who were at work the day the
researcher visited the sampled hospitals. The questionnaires were used to collect data
from the sampled professional nurses, and descriptive statistic was used to analyse the
data.
RESULTS:
The findings revealed that 45% of the professional nurses experienced pressure of work
without rest, whereas 75% viewed changes at work as challenging and 15% mostly
experienced accidents while on duty. Most of them indicated that they had previously
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experienced anxiety and that they did not engage in exercise. The finding further
revealed that EAP is not facilitated in most institutions and that 97.4% of the
professional nurses like to have more knowledge on management of stress. The results
of this study may be useful to the entire population of health professionals, policy
