Analysis of Occupational Stressors of Public Health Nurses in Taiwan

Objective (s): to determine the major work stressors and their impacting factors on public health nurses in Taiwan. Materials and Methods: The sample came from 359 public health nurses working in Township health stations in a tri-county area in central Taiwan. A questionnaire survey of self-reports of 35 stressful conditions with Likert type responses in four subscales, and the impacts of sociodemographic variables on the major stressors were analyzed, the response rate was 74.9%. Results: Among the four subscales of stressors, including workload, drab work content social role and managerial structure, the workload subscale was found to be the source of most stressors for public health nurses in Taiwan. Conclusions: The major stressors were the diverse and complicated work content, heavy job responsibility and too much work, these stressors usually exists on most days of the week. These results should provide useful information for the administrators in formulating strategies to relieve work stress in public health nurses in Taiwan.