Impact of Job Stress on Nurses’ Job Satisfaction in a Public Hospital, Cross River State, Calabar, Nigeria

Background: The nursing professional work environment is known to have a lot of job stress factors (stressors),that has continuously caused devastating health hazards and lack of job satisfaction among nurses (Leatt and Schneck, 2014). Understanding the impact of job stress on nurses’ job satisfaction will help managements, hospital policy makers and nurse administrators develop appropriate strategies and programmes that would improve nurse’s health and job satisfaction. Purpose: The study was carried out to determine the impact of job stress on nurses’ job satisfaction in the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital. Methods: A self-developed questionnaire was administered to 115 respondents selected through simple random sampling. Results: of the 115 respondents 107 (93.04%) were females. 66 (57.39%) were between ages 20-39 years. 86 (74.78%) were married; 68 (59.13%) respondents had diploma, while 47 (40.87%) had BNsc, 13 (11.30%) had Bsc in other disciplines or Post graduate qualification. 29 (25.22%) respondents were NO11, 23 (20%) were SNO, 19 (16.52%). Chi square (x2) analysis revealed significant relationship between job stress and job satisfaction among nurses (P\u3c0.05). Work hazards, work load and conflicting multiple role demands emerged as stressful factors that contributed significantly to nurses’ job satisfaction. Conclusion: Work place policies that promote nurses autonomy, good nursing leadership and supervision, Implementation of WHO nurse -patient ratio of (1:4) can facilitate stress free work environment for nurses, and translate to positive health for nurses decrease lack of job satisfaction, increase nurses productivity, efficiency and quality of care