When nurses cry: coping with occupational stress in Thailand

Anecdotal reports of people feeling better after they cry support theories that link crying to the reduction of stress after a period of prolonged sympathetic activation. A sample of 200 nurses were asked to rate their occupational stress, job satisfaction, and crying as a coping strategy. Crying was found to be an important symptom of home/work conflicts and pressures related to dealing with patients, but did not substantially reduce these sources of stress. Supporting the stress-buffering hypothesis, nurses with lower intrinsic job satisfaction seemed to benefit from emotional crying whereas dissatisfied nurses who cry infrequently reported the highest levels of stress. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.