Perceived Stress among Nurses of Psychiatric Ward Patients with and without Suicidal Behavior

Abstract

The present research was conducted to obtain a perceived stress (PS) pattern among nurses attending the psychiatric patients with suicidal and non-suicidal behavior .The data was taken from the different hospitals and clinics of the twin- cities (Islamabad and Rawalpindi) of Pakistan. Between group-design was selected for the present study. The sample was comprised of the nurses of psychiatric ward attending the one suicidal patient for 12 hours with and without suicidal behavior working in night and day shifts respectively. The total number of nurse (N= 44) contained n= 22 nurses of the night shift attending the patients with suicidal behavior and n= 22 nurses of the day shift attending the patients without suicidal behavior. Participants were approached during their duty hours and were given perceived stress scale 10- items along with demographic information sheet and the consent form. It was hypothesized that the nurses attending the patients with suicidal behavior have high perceived stress then then those of attending non-suicidal patients and PS was assumed to be higher for those nurses who worked in night shifts .The results indicated that verification of both hypotheses (M= 42 ±3.5) and ( M= 19.11 ± 5.7). t(28.5)= 14.9 p< 0.05 significant t- test, variance not equal. Limitations and suggestions for future were also discussed.