Relationship between personality hardiness and critical care nurses' perception of stress and coping in the critical care environment

• Main Author: Chang, Catherina Ivette
• Format: Others
• Published: FIU Digital Commons 2000
• Subjects: Nursing
• Online Access: http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/2107; http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3361&context=etd

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between critical care nurses' perception of stress, their ability to cope with stress, and the hardiness personality they possess while working in the critical care environment. A non-experimental, descriptive, correlational survey design was applied to a convenience sample of 50 registered nurses employed in the critical care units of a South Florida health care facility. The data collection methods included a demographic survey, the Perceived Stress Scale, the Health-Related Hardiness Scale, and the COPE inventory. The results of this study demonstrated that critical care nurses are able to cope effectively despite their perception of high levels of stress. This study also determined that critical care nurses uphold high personality hardiness characteristics. The demographic variables of gender, age, years of nursing experience, years at present job, and level of education also revealed statistical significance. Further research is recommended to identify the influence of other variables such as culture, work hours, and level of job satisfaction in the critical care nurses' coping with stress and hardiness personality. The identification of instruments that may be capable of measuring any relationships between those possible variables and the constructs of hardiness and coping in the domain of nursing are also advocated, particularly in the critical care nursing population.