Occupational stress related to nursing care in intensive care

Abstract

Objective: to estimate the prevalence of occupational stress among nursing professionals working in the Intensive Care Unit and to identify its association with sociodemographic, professional and nursing care-related variables. Method: cross-sectional study, conducted in a teaching hospital in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, with 54 professionals. Data were collected between February and March 2020 using the Bianchi Stress Scale and analyzed by the Stata Program. Results: the prevalence of occupational stress at medium or high level was 57.4%. Higher stress levels were significantly associated with shorter training time (p-value=0.05), being a nurse (p-value=0.00), facing patient death (p-value=0.01), attending to critically ill patients’ relatives (p-value=0.00) and meeting the needs of family members (p-value=0.00). Conclusion: the high prevalence of occupational stress, as well as the associated factors identified, were essential information for the implementation of preventive strategies.