Assignment 3 Essay—Using Primary Sources
Purpose of the Research
The purpose of the research was to compare the level of stress between nurses and salespersons. The research sets out to prove that nurses are more prone to experience interpersonal stress because they frequently interact with patients who are the main cause of stress. The study also attempts to show how salespersons and nurses cope with interpersonal stress at their respective workplace. Consequently, the study endeavors to show that the coping behavior of nurses is a potential safeguard that can diminish their psychological functioning and welfare effects that can result from work related stress. Further, the research examines the connection between the strategies for coping that nurses adopt with the interactive stress from patients and their psychological misery.
Methods Used to Conduct the Research
Kato (2014) uses 142 sales persons and 204 hospital nurses as the two groups that participated in the research. All the participants were females of the Japanese origin. The age of the participants from the nursing profession oscillated between 19 and 57 years besides a standard deviation of 9.28. The average age of the participant nurses was 29.89 years. Consequently, the average number of years that the nurses had worked in a hospital was 9.12 as the range of years that the nurses had worked at hospitals was between 2 to 40 years. Each of the sales persons used in the study was a full-time department store worker. The average age of the salespersons was 34.20 years with the range of years being between 18 and 52 having a standard deviation of 10.75. All the participants were drafted through brief courses regarding stress management. The brief nurses’ course was conducted in the guise of job training by a local association for nurses. For the salespersons, the brief course was organized by the human resource department of the organization where they were working. Voluntary participation was encouraged for the two samples. The study for both samples was conducted before the commencement of the short training. First, each participant signed a consent form before proceeding to complete a set of feedback form within a group setting. As an appreciation for completing the set of questionnaires, ever participant was given a pen worth 1.25 USD (Kato, 2014, p. 33).
Three Japanese psychologists and native speakers assisted in the translation of the questionnaires that were originally written in English to Japanese. Consequently a native philosopher who was also an English speaker translated the questionnaires into English. The questionnaires that were interpreted were modified after a discussion among the interpreters.
Results of the Research
The results in Kato (2014) research proves that there were higher reports of psychological stress among the nurses having an average of 9.44 with a standard deviation of 6.43 than among the salespersons that had an average of 7.84 with a standard deviation of 7.49. Consequently, there was no significant variations with regard to coping strategies but the nurses’ average of all the coping tactics were higher than those of the salespersons. Accordingly, the connections between the coping tactics and psychological distress showed distancing coping among the nurses to be significantly linked with increased psychological distress, reassessing coping among nurses showed a significant connection with low psychological distress but not with regard to sales persons.
Further, the constructive coping showed a significant connection with low psychological anguish among the nurses but different among the salespersons. This shows that experienced a higher level of work-related stress as compared with the salespersons. However, the nature of the stressors differed in that nurses were more likely to interact for longer periods with patients (their stressors) than the salespersons that usually have shorter interactions with customers (Kato, 2014, p. 34). The results further revealed that are found in the nurse-patient relations are complex.
Conclusion
Although the research was carried out among Japanese nurses and Japanese salespersons the results were generalized to other populations. The research found that nurses suffer more psychological distress than the salespersons. Constructive and reassessing coping were effective strategies in reducing the psychological distress among the nurses while distancing coping was ineffective for nurses. Taking into consideration the revelations of the research, it is important for nurses to understand the function of constructive coping when it comes to nurse-patient interaction and communication. It would be of great help if nurses were to vary their coping strategies as and when required.
References
Kato, T. (2014). Coping with Interpersonal Stress and Psychological Distress at Work:
Comparison of Hospital Nursing Staff and Salespeople. Dovepress. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 7, 31–36.
