Management of stress by professional nurses in the hospitals of Vhembe District in Limpopo Province, South Africa

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 iii 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