Association of Occupational Stress and Burnout with Perceived Quality of Nursing Care Among Nurses in Tertiary Care Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Abstract

Background: While nurses are frontline healthcare providers, certain workplaces may expose them to occupational stress and burnout. Nurses' experience of these psychological issues can impact on their professional performance and their experiences of the quality of care. This study aimed to examine the relationships of occupational stress and burnout with nurses’ perceived quality of care in tertiary hospitals.  Methodology: A quantitative analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among 138 registered nurses working in tertiary-care hospitals. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire that included sociodemographic characteristics, the Nurses’ Occupational Stressor Scale (NOSS-21), the work-related burnout subscale of the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI), and a single item assessing perceived nursing-care quality. Cronbach's alpha was used to check the internal consistency of the instrument. Data obtained were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics, calculating descriptive statistics, Spearman's correlation analysis and regression analysis. Results were deemed to be significant if p-values were 0.05 or less. Results: The NOSS-21 and CBI demonstrated acceptable internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha values of 0.725 and 0.767, respectively. The correlation coefficient between occupational stress and perceived quality of nursing care was rₛ = −0.274 with p = 0.001 which is significant and shows that higher level of stress in occupation was associated with lower level of perceived nursing care. In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between occupational stress and burnout (rₛ = −0.287, p = 0.001). The significant correlation of values between burnout and perceived quality of nursing care (rₛ = 0.189; p = 0.027) was observed. Occupational stress was a significant independent predictor of perceived nursing-care quality (β = −0.258, p = .003), whereas burnout was not (β = 0.116, p = .176).  Conclusion: Occupational stress was significantly associated with nurses’ perceptions of care quality in tertiary-care hospitals. Addressing workplace stressors through a supportive environment, appropriate workload distribution, and effective management may protect nurses’ well-being and help maintain high-quality patient care.