INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS AS STRESSORS AND BARRIERS IN THE WORK ENVIRONMENTAL OF NURSING PRACTICE AT HEALTHCARE FACILITIES IN DUBAI, UAE

Background: Work relationships are potential stressors. Two sources of stress in nursing profession are conflict with co-workers and lack of staff support. The lack of social support from colleagues and superiors in addition to less satisfaction with the head nurses contributed significantly to the appearance of stress.

Objectives: To study the determinants of the interpersonal relations in the work environment and nursing practise among nurses at health care facilities.

Methods: A cross sectional design was carried out at governmental and private hospitals in Dubai. The sample size was 295 nurses, 185 nurses (63.8%) from private hospitals and 110 nurses (36.2%) from governmental hospitals. The data collection tool was the "Expanded Nursing Stress Scale" (ENSS). The complete ENSS contains 57 items categorized in nine subscales. The 57 items were arranged in a 5-point Likert response scale. The responses were as the following: “does not apply=0, never stressful=1, occasionally stressful=2, frequently stressful=3 and extremely stressful=4”.

Results: Regarding the factor “conflict with physician”, the study showed that the item “criticism by a physician” has the highest mean score (2.50), and the item “having to organize doctors’ work” has the least score (1.95). Regarding the factor “problems relating to peers”, the study revealed that the item “lack of opportunity to talk openly with other personnel about problems in the work setting” has the highest mean stress score (2.19), while the item “difficulty in working with nurses of the opposite sex” gave no stress at all among the participants (0.76). Regarding the factor “problems relating to supervisors”, the study showed that the item “Being held accountable for things which I have no control” is the most stressful event in the problems relating to supervisors with a mean score value of 2.22, while “lack of support of my immediate supervisor” is the least stressful event (1.60). Regarding the factor “patients and their families”, the study revealed that the item “Unreasonable demands of patients' families and of patients” is the most stressful with mean score 2.89 for patient’s families and 2.87 for patients.

Conclusion: Interpersonal determinant are the main factors in developing job related stress among nurses during in-services practices. The main factors are the following: “criticism by a physician”, “lack of opportunity to talk openly with other personnel about problems in the work setting”, “Being held accountable for things which I have no control” and “Unreasonable demands of patients' families and of patients”. Addressing interpersonal work environment gaps during nursing practices requires adopting nursing professional development programs, setting up regulations and standards and creating healthy work environment (friendly-work environment).