Abstract

Background and objectives: Doing therapeutic jobs in which human relationships and individuals' health status are of importance can bring about a lot of stress. Among those working in healthcare centers, nurses are can suffer from the highest levels of pressure at work. Thus, this study aimed for comparing stress, coping strategies, and quality of life among nurses working in intensive care units, emergency wards, and other hospital departments. Materials and Methods: The present study was of casual-comparative research type. Thus, the statistical population of this study included all the nurses working within hospitals of the city of Ilam in Iran in 2016. To conduct this study, a total number of 253 nurses (103 individuals from emergency wards, 47 people from intensive care units, 103 nurses from other hospital departments) were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling method. To meet the research objectives; Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) developed by Cohen et al., Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS) by Endler and Parker, and World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHO-QoL) instrument were used. Accordingly; MANOVA and ANOVA were employed to test the research hypotheses. The data obtained were also analyzed through the SPSS Version 24 Software. Results: Analysis of tests at a level of P=0.05 showed a significant relationship between the variables of taskoriented coping style, stress, mental health, social relationships and environment among nurses working in intensive care units, emergency wards, and other hospital departments; however, no significant difference was observed between emotion-oriented coping style, avoidance-oriented coping style, and physical health among nurses working in intensive care units, emergency wards, and other hospital departments. Conclusion: Given that stressors and efficient coping styles can have impacts on the quality of life of nurses, adoption of effective strategies by managers to improve working conditions and to reduce stress at work are of paramount importance. © 2018 Medknow. All rights reserved.