Associations of work stress and humor with health status in hospital nurses-A cross-sectional study

Aims and objectives To analyse the relationship among hospital nurses' socio-demographic data, work stress, humor and health conditions, and to determine the predictors of nurses' health status. Background Humor can decrease the feelings of helplessness, fear and anxiety, and that may result in the development of positive emotions, which might have a good impact on health. Design This research applied cross-sectional designs and used structured questionnaires which included socio-demographic data, an Effort-Reward Imbalance questionnaire (ERI), humor and 12-item Chinese health questionnaires (CHQ). A total of 236 nurses in a regional hospital in Taiwan were recruited. SPSS was used for the data analysis in the study. The STROBE was chosen as a checklist for this study. Results The results showed that the significant predictors of the participants' health were "whether experienced significant life events during the past 3 months," "the degree of work stress" and the level of "humor." Conclusions It is recommended that administrators pay attention to the cultivation of nursing staff's humor, such as providing nurses with musical CDs or humorous books and providing stress management training courses to nurses. Relevance to clinical practice It is necessary for hospital managers to determine and deal with the causes of work stress to avoid the development of health problems in the nursing personnel. Furthermore, in order to develop stress-releasing strategies, it is necessary to provide nurses with stress management and resilience enhancement courses. Cultivating a humor competency of nurses is also recommended to alleviate the work stress.