Qom University of Medical Sciences Journal

Introduction
Nurses are exposed to occupational stress and pressures more than other members of the treatment team. On the other hand, the rotating work shift of nurses can have many effects on their job performance, sleep quality, physical health, mental health, and social life leading to indiscriminate use of medications and reduced level of tolerance. The tension and stress caused by the work shifts can be one of the risk factors of health in nurses and one of the most important underlying factors for mental disorders. Kheyri et al. (2017) [4] in a study in Iran showed that 69.8% of nurses face general health problems.
Addressing the general health of nurses working in special care units is of particular importance. Due to specific working conditions such as the need to respond quickly to emergency situations, the heavy responsibility of taking care of sick patients, frequent dealing with emotional problems, and being in unwanted and forced situations to give bad news to patients’ families, nurses in these departments suffer more from psychological pressures. This becomes more important when psychological problems significantly reduce the quality of nursing care and endanger the lives of patients and general health of nurses. From another point of view, heavy workload in special care units threatens the general health of nurses. In addition, nurses in special care units have seen high death cases and are exposed to the risk of job burnout due to high tolerance of various stresses. Due to the experience of such conditions, their job satisfaction decreases.
Different results have been reported in different studies regarding the general health of nurses. This emphasizes the necessity of conducting more studies in this regard in different cities to better identify the general health of nurses and its dimensions. Therefore, the present study aims to determine the general health of nurses working in special care units in Qom, Iran.
Methods
This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 2019. The study population consists of all nurses working in the critical care unit (CCU) and intensive care unit (ICU) of Shahid Beheshti Hospital (3 CCUs and 5 ICUs), Kamkar Hospital (one CCU and one ICU) and Fargani Hospital (3 ICUs) affiliated to Qom University of Medical Sciences (n=300). All nurses participated in this study using census sampling method. The inclusion criteria were bachelor›s or master›s degrees in nursing, and working in special care units. To collect information, after obtaining permission from the nursing managers and supervisors, questionnaires (A demographic form and Goldberg›s general health questionnaire) were distributed among the participants. It took 20 minutes to complete. The total time of data collection was 3 months. Data analysis was carried out in SPSS v. 16 software. In this regard, descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent t-tests and chi-square) were used. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results
The mean age of nurses was 34.28±7.15; 60.7% were female, 57.3% were married, 92% had a bachelor›s degree, 68.7% were working in ICU and 31.3% in CCU. Their mean general health score was 25.43±8.84; 52.3% had general health problems. Regarding the domains of general health, the highest mean was related to social function (13.27) and the lowest mean score was related to depression (2.1). Other results showed no significant relationship between demographic characteristics of nurses and their general health.
Discussion
The general health of nurses working in special care units in Qom city is impaired in terms of social function. Therefore, it is necessary to improve their social function. This can be done by developing educational interventions focusing on social skills. The general health of nurses in terms of anxiety is also unfavorable. Hence, it is important to address this general health domain by developing interventions such as muscle relaxation. These interventions can be done under the support of nursing managers.
Ethical Considerations
Compliance with ethical guidelines
This study has the code of ethics IR.IUMS.REC 1397.1025 from Qom University of Medical Sciences (QUMS).
Funding
The present article is taken from the master's thesis of Munirah Ghanbari Afra, Special Care Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Iran University of Medical Sciences. Qom University of Medical Sciences (QUMS) was the financial sponsor of this research.
Authors contributions
All authors contributed equally in preparing all parts of the research.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to all the nurses who helped the researchers to conduct the study by completing the questionnaires.