Relationship between nurses' expression of humor toward their colleagues, and their physical and mental reactions and social support

Abstract

PURPOSE: Humor significantly contributes to reducing stress and invigorating the workplace. Few studies have restricted the targets of humor expression to colleagues or investigated its relationship with stress reactions and social support of colleagues. This study aimed to investigate the expression of humor by nurses toward their colleagues, and examine its relationship with the physical and mental stress reactions and social support of colleagues. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: A self-administered questionnaire survey was administered to 765 nurses working at eight hospitals in a city in northeastern Japan. The "Brief Job Stress" questionnaire results were used to identify physical and mental stress reactions and social support of the colleagues. We also used a 15-item humor expression scale (Tsukawaki et al., 2009a) to analyze three humor types: "aggressive humor" (dark jokes), "playful humor" (puns and other wordplays), and "self-disparaging humor" (masochistic or self-deprecating jokes). Statistical analyses were performed to examine the relationship between the patterns of humor, physical and mental stress reactions, and social support of colleagues. RESULTS: Questionnaires were obtained from 672 respondents (collection rate: 87.8%), and 623 participants remained for the analyses (valid response rate: 81.4%) after eliminating incomplete/inadequate entries. The nurses expressed "self-disparaging humor" most frequently toward their colleagues. Multiple regression analysis of the attributes affecting each humor type revealed significant relationships between "aggressive humor" and sex, presence/absence of position/rank, and presence/absence of night shift; "self-disparaging humor" and sex and presence/absence of position/rank; and "playful humor" and sex and age group. Meanwhile, social support of colleagues was significantly related to age group, self-disparaging humor, vitality, irritability/frustration, and physical malaise. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Nurses mostly used self-disparaging humor to communicate with colleagues, which displayed support toward self and others. Male nurses utilized a greater variety of humor as compared to their female counterparts. Nurses with a higher position/rank were more likely to use aggressive humor, such as light sarcasm, or self-disparaging humor, such as laughing at their own mistakes. These results demonstrated that the usage of puns to lighten the mood and other playful humor could increase with age. This study suggested that discussing one's own shortcomings and mistakes with humor and working energetically increased the social support from one's colleagues. Furthermore, approaching or performing one's work with displays of irritation and poor mental and physical health could reduce such support.