Last update:
31-May-2023

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the level of stress, permanent, occasional and overall, experienced by the nursing personnel in a general hospital, and the impact of specific socio-demographic factors.

METHOD A quantitative survey was carried out on a sample of 100 nurses working at the "Amalia Fleming" General Hospital in Athens. Data were collected using the Spielberger Stress Questionnaire (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; State Anxiety and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; Trait Anxiety) and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), version 25.0.

RESULTS The nurses recorded a mean level of occasional stress of 46.67±12.42, which was significantly higher (p=0.006) than the cut-off point between normal and abnormal for the "healthy" Greek population, which is 43.21. Their mean level of permanent stress was 37.21±8.78, which was significantly lower (p<0.001) than the corresponding cut-off level of 42.79, while their mean level of overall stress was 83.88±19.62, which showed no significant difference (p=0.28) from the corresponding cut-off level of 86.01 for the "healthy" Greek population. Concerning the impact of socio-demographic characteristics, gender was the only factor that affected the stress level; women appear to experience higher levels than men in occasional (p=0.002) and overall stress (p=0.004), but not in permanent stress (p=0.11).

CONCLUSIONS The nursing personnel in the study hospital showed significantly high levels of occasional stress during the COVID-19 epidemic, which exceeded the cut-off values of normal for the Greek population, but low levels of permanent and overall stress, within the normal accepted levels. Females recorded higher levels of occasional stress than males.

Key words: Anxiety, COVID-19, Scoring instructions, Spielberger Anxiety Scale.