Perceived Stress and Professional Quality of Life in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Nurses in Gujarat, India

Objective To study the levels of perceived stress in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) nurses and its association with professional quality of life domains viz. compassion satisfaction, burnout and secondary trauma. Methods In this multicenter, cross sectional study, data was collected by surveying 129 nurses from nine NICUs across six cities of Gujarat, India using demographic questionnaire, Perceived Stress Scale (PSS14) and Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL5) during July to September 2013. Descriptive statistics, correlation coefficient and multiple regression were used for analysis. Results The mean (SD) age of participants was 28.37(8.20) y. Most were single, satisfied with salary benefits and reported ‘good’ to ‘excellent’ relationships at work. The mean (SD) duration of duty hours was 8.12(0.76) h and 43.6 % were attending to more than 4 patients/shift. The mean (SD) perceived stress level was 22.19 (7.17) [Range: 3 to 39]. High compassion satisfaction, high burnout, and high secondary traumatic stress were reported by 25 (19.4 %), 30 (23.3 %) and 30 (23.3 %) nurses respectively. PSS14 was negatively correlated with compassion satisfaction ( r = -0.28) and positively correlated with burnout ( r = 0.43) and secondary traumatic stress ( r = 0.24). Conclusions Most of the nurses (91, 70.5 %) were identified as perceiving moderate to high stress. Professional quality of life domains correlated with perceived stress. There is further need to study domains influencing NICU nurses’ professional QOL. Identifying stress and QOL issues in NICU nurses can help formulate relevant policies.