Backgrounds and Aim: Cognitive-behavioral stress management refers to a part of stress management therapies that increases individuals’ ability to reduce stress and gain an appropriate adjustment with stressful situations. The present study was conducted by the aim of investigating the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral stress management on job stress of Nursing Staff in Intensive Care Units.
Material and Methods: In the present semi-experimental study, 40 nurses working in intensive care units of Imam Ali hospital of Bojnourd city were selected in the second half of 2015 based on available sampling method and also inclusion and exclusion criteria for the study, and they were assigned to experimental and control groups (20 subjects per group) through random assignment method. Before and after the intervention, the participants were asked to complete the Nurses Stress Scale of Taft-Gray and Anderson (1981). The experiment group received cognitive behavioral stress management therapy for 10 weekly group sessions, while the control group received no intervention. The data were analyzed by tests of analysis of covariance, and Kolmogorov- Smirnov and Leven tests in SPSS v20 software.
Results: The results indicated that the scores of job stress of nurses before and after the cognitive behavioral stress management therapy were respectively 110.80 and 97.75, and this difference was statistically significant (F = 45.63 and P < 0.01). In other words, the nurses who were treated by cognitive behavioral stress management reported a decrease in their stress level.
Conclusion: Cognitive behavioral stress management therapy reduced stress among nurses working in intensive care units. It is recommended that nursing managers and authorities proceed to hold stress management programs in their workplace and improve the quality of nursing services and client satisfaction through these programs.