Abstract:
Background and objectives: Nurses provide patient care, educate the patients and their
families, and act as important liaisons between patients and doctors. The objective of this
study was to determine the challenges and associated factors of being a nursing officer
at Teaching Hospital Jaffna.
Methods: A population-based cross-sectional analytical study was carried out among
427 nursing officers in Teaching Hospital Jaffna using stratified sampling to recruit the
participants from February 2022 to October 2023 using a self-administered questionnaire
and analyzed with SPSS. Challenges were defined as limitations and demands common
to the nursing field, and included perceived stress level, job satisfaction, mental well-
being and work-family balance. We used the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), and adapted
the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, PHQ -9 for Mental Wellbeing, and a section
of the Work Life Balance questionnaire. The significance of association was determined
using Chi-square test, one-way ANOVA and t-test with the level of significance set at
0.05.
Results: The response rate was 100.9% (431/427), it was oversampled. Among
participants, 24.4% (n=105) were male and 75.6% (n=326) were female. Majority of the
participants were Tamil 60.1% (n=259) and mean age was 32.09 years. The majority
were in the moderate stress level (81.9%, n=353). There was an association between
perceived stress level and age (p<0.001) and having children (p=0.007). There was an
association between job satisfaction and perceived stress level (p=0.01). Job satisfaction
was associated with first language (95% CI: 0.18 to 1.56, p=0.014) and hometown
(p=0.03). The majority of participants were in the mild depression grading of the PHQ-
9 scale (38.5%, n=166). State of mental well-being was associated with marital status
(p<0.001) and sex (p<0.001). The work-family balance was associated with sex (95%
CI: -1.28 to -0.28, p=0.003) and number of night shifts per week (95% CI: 9.7 to 10.09,
p=0.03).
Conclusion and recommendations: There was an association among the challenges
especially between job satisfaction and perceived stress. Strategies should be developed
considering the mental health of nursing officers such as awareness programmes and
recreational activities. Policies should be implemented at administrative level
considering the problems.
