The Effect of Progressive Muscle Relaxation on The Occupational Stress of Nurses in Critical Care Units

Background and objective: In the nursing profession, there are numerous factors which altogether cause occupational stress and as a result occupational exhaustion in nurses and decrease the quality of patient care. Regarding the importance of this issue which influences the health indices of the society, this study investigates the effect of progressive muscle relaxation on the occupational stress of nurses.Materials and Methods: This semi-experimental and before-after study was conducted using progressive muscle relaxation intervention on 33 nurses in special treatment (ICU and CCU) and emergency units through simple sampling in Yazd in 2012. To assess occupational stress,Toft-Anderson questionnaire was used. The procedure of applying relaxation in a practical way was given to nurses in pamphlets and questionnaires were filled before and two weeks after the intervention. Analysis was done using SPSS.16 software and T-test.Results: The average total score of stress in nurses before and after the intervention was determined as – 28.12±43.74 and 52.12±04.72 respectively and this difference was not statistically significant (39.0>p). However, in the dimensions of nurses’ workload (/0>p 03 and t=2.27) and patients’ suffering and death, these scores were significantly different (0001.0>p and t=3.94).Conclusion: This study showed that applying progressive muscle relaxation technique as a method of emotion-focused coping cannot be effective in the reduction of occupational stress in nurses