DOI: 10.36347/sjebm.2014.v01i07.009

Pages: 335-349

This survey based descriptive research has been undertaken in Tirunelveli District, Tamilnadu to foresight coping strategies being followed by nurses to deal with stress, to differentiate coping strategies being followed by the nurses working in different departments and to examine the relationship between demographic variables and coping strategies. The structured format of coping strategies established by Folkman and Lazarus has been used in this study to analyze coping styles of nurses. It has been analyzed under five dimensions namely positive and action focused coping, wishful thinking and positive reappraisal, distancing, escape and avoidance and seeking social support coping. The study has sampled 360 nurses qualified with Diploma in General Nursing and Midwifery and Bachelor of Science in Nursing courses from 45 general types of private hospitals using stratified random sampling technique. Weighted average method has been applied to analyze sources of stress. Mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation have been used to rank and differentiate the dimensions of coping strategies. Kruskal Wallis test has been administered to examine the relationship between coping strategies and demographic variables. The result indicated that positive and action focused coping is the foremost coping strategy being followed by nurses. Wishful thinking and positive reappraisal and seeking social support strategies are the next foremost strategies. Seeking social support and escape and avoidance strategies are the least strategies followed by nurses. All five dimensions of coping strategies have been perceived at medium level by majority of the nurses.