The Relationship between Conflict and Work Environment Stressors among Nurses at A General Hospital

Abstract

Background: Conflict is one of many issues found in any organization, including hospitals, and often associated with high stress levels. Aim: This study aimed at examining the relationship between conflict and work environment stressors among nurses working at a General Hospital. Settings: it was carried out in medical, surgical and intensive care units at Kafr Elshiekh General Hospital. Design: A cross-sectional analytic design was used in carrying out this study. Subjects and methods: subjects of this study included 108 staff nurses working in the abovementioned settings. Three tools were used for collecting data namely, perceived conflict scale tool, Thomas- Killman conflict mode instrument questionnaire, and stress rating scale. Results: revealed that slightly more than half of staff nurses are suffering from high conflict level (53.7%), where the intragroup conflict type was the highest type present in the studied sample (97.0%), competing strategy was the mostly used strategy by staff nurses (66.7%). More than half of staff nurses were suffering from high level of total work environment stressors (68.5%); the highest percentage of nurses experienced conflict with physician (88.9%) In addition, there were a statistically significant relation between conflict and various types of workplace stress while there was no relation between nurses' workplace stress and the use of any conflict resolution strategies. Conclusion and recommendations: high percentages of nurses in study experienced both conflict and stress with the majority of them experienced intragroup conflict. Stress is influenced by nurses' age and conflict score. The study recommends training courses to develop nurses' skills in dealing with conflict. Enhancing stress coping strategies through counseling programs. Hospital administration must keep line of communication opened between staff nurses and nursing managers through meeting, and conferences to explore work issues and problems and find appropriate solutions. Keywords: conflict, conflict resolution strategies, work environment stressors, nurses.