Exploring Work-Related Stress: Theoretical Perspectives and their Implications for Staff Nurses Performance

Abstract

The nursing profession is one of the most stressful in the world. The objective of this exploratory study was to explore the theories that explain stress at work and how they affect staff nurses' performance. The results show that many theories have explained job-related stress. The most significant theories are the transactional theories, which have linked workplace stress to the workplace environment. The interactional theories of stress have stated that stress is primarily caused by interactions between environmental and occupational stimuli and an individual's reaction to those stimuli. According to the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) hypothesis, societal norms that emphasize workplace efforts would be a portion of a psychological contract in which those efforts are rewarded with opportunities and compensation. According to the person-environment fit theory, stress at work results from an improper fit between an individual's talents, abilities, resources, and the demands of the workplace. The Job Demand-Control (JDC) theory assumed primary cause of work-related stress was interaction between various psychological demands of workplace specifically related to workload. The Conservation of Resources (COR) Model highlighted importance of general life stressors to be included in the potential stressors present at the workplace as the life events of an individual must have been important to consider in the job performance analysis.