Relationships Between Sleep Problems and Stress Coping Strategies Adopted by Nurses Including Socio-Occupational Factors

Abstract

Introduction: The health of nurses has a direct impact on the quality of care and health outcomes for patients. The length and quality of sleep as well as the intensity of perceived stress have an impact on the health of nurses. An appropriate stress coping strategy can reduce the impact of stress and mitigate its negative consequences.Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between excessive sleepiness and insomnia in interaction with selected socio-occupational factors and stress coping strategies among nurses.Material and Method: The cross-sectional study was conducted among 448 nurses working in hospitals in Podlasie Province in Poland. Mini-Cope inventory - the polish adaptation of Carver's BriefCope was used for measuring coping with stress. Sleep problems were assessed using the Athens Insomnia Scale and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale.Results: The most frequent used coping strategies were active strategies (active coping, planning). The least-used were avoidant strategies (behavioral disengagement, substance use). Excessive sleepiness affected 38% of surveyed, while insomnia 33%. Excessive sleepiness was most strongly related with behavioural disengagement (R2 = 18.6%), substance use (R2 = 17.5%), humour (R2 = 13.8%) and denial (R2 = 12.0%) while insomnia with substance use (R2 = 17.5%) and self-blame (R2 = 15.9%). Nurses with tertiary education experiencing sleep problems less frequently used the strategy of humour, behavioural disengagement, substance use and religion than with lower education. Nurses working in interventional wards experiencing excessive sleepiness used the strategy of humour, religion and positive reframing less often than those working in other wards while those suffering from insomnia used the strategy of humour more often than those working in other wards.Conclusions: The implementation of avoidant and support-seeking and emotion-oriented stress coping strategies by nurses were associated with the sleep problems. Tertiary education discourages nurses with sleep problems from using avoidant coping strategies and devoting themselves to religion. Education and improvement of the quality of sleep may prevent nurses from resorting to stress coping strategies that have a detrimental effect on their health and well-being.

Strategies for Coping With Stress Used by Nurses in Poland and Belarus During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…When it comes to the Polish group, the results obtained are not significantly different from the results of a survey conducted using the same MiniCope tool among nurses from Bialystok hospitals in 2019, i.e., before the COVID-19 pandemic ( 60 ).…”

“…We conducted the analysis separately for the group from Belarus and Poland. The groups were significantly different in terms of age and education, and according to previous research, these factors have a significant effect on the selection of coping strategies ( 60 ). In the case of the Belorussian group, a statistically significant correlation was obtained only for the factor of “being in home isolation or quarantine”.…”

“…Demographic factors such as age, education, having children, and marital status also affect the selection of coping strategies ( 28 , 60 ). Therefore, we performed multivariate analysis for each group using a set of regression models.…”

The Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Stress Levels and Occurrence of Stomatoghnatic System Disorders (SSDs) among Physiotherapy Students in Poland

“…All participants agreed to voluntarily participate in the study by signing an informed consent. They were asked to fill in the survey consisting of two parts: the first part included a respondent's particulars (age, sex, year of study) and ten close-ended questions concerning the symptoms of SSDs and pain (Likert scale) [39][40][41][42][43][44][45]. The second part consisted of standardized psychological questionnaires, PSS10 (perceived stress scale), Mini-Cope (Inventory for measuring coping with stress), DS14 (Type-D scale) [46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54].…”

Nurses Coping with Stressful Situations—A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Stress coping is a constantly changing behavioural and cognitive effort directed at specific internal and/or external demands appraised as taxing or beyond one’s resources [ 19 ]. Endler and Parker (1990) distinguished three styles of coping with stress: task-oriented style (TOS—after the initial assessment, there is a tendency to make an effort to solve the problem); emotion-oriented style (EOS—undertaking action to reduce the emotional tension accompanying a stressful situation through wishful thinking, fantasising); avoidance-oriented style (AOS—rejecting thoughts about the fundamental problem, not allowing oneself to experience it and engage in solving the stressful situation: this style is expressed in two subscales, i.e., ESA—engaging in substitute activities—and SSC—searching for social contacts) [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ].…”