Conflict Management and Stress Dimensions Among Nurses Within and Beyond the Wards

In recent decades, the growing awareness of the impact of nurses’ occupational stress at individual and organizational levels, along with the increasing issue of conflicts and violence in healthcare services, has raised international interest towards prevention and health promotion research and interventions. Yet, since the interplay between work and private lives is rather complex and tangled, research and interventions should consider that perceived sources of stress and conflicts – but also the resources – within the wards can also crossover the healthcare settings, impacting nurses’ private lives and viceversa, thus potentially creating vicious circles exacerbating stress, suffering, imbalances and conflicts or, conversely, virtuous circles of psychological and relational wellbeing. Responding to the need to go in-depth into this complex dynamic to effectively inform current research/interventions, the present study will provide original evidence from a research application of a statistically valid multidimensional and transactional model of stress in nursing, namely the Work-Related Stress and Wellbeing Among Nurses Model. Data provided evidence-based information which can be used to effectively prevent the maintenance/exacerbation of vicious circles and promote the virtuous circles of individual and relational wellbeing. Specifically, findings highlighted the detrimental impact of the interplay (main and mediating effects) between perceived stress and conflicts within the work domain (i.e., workload, conflicts with physicians, conflicts with peers, conflicts with supervisors, patients and their families, effort-reward imbalance) and beyond the healthcare setting (i.e., perceived work-family conflict and family-work-conflict) not only at the individual level, impairing nurses’ psychological health conditions (Anxiety, Depression, Somatization), but also at the relational level, impacting nurses’ perceived levels of Hostility and Interpersonal-Sensitivity. This dynamic will be carefully discussed since it may potentially lead to further exacerbating conflicts and undermining the provision of high-quality care relations. Moreover, this study also allowed the identification of specific moderating variables (i.e., job control, social support, job satisfaction) that were able to significantly buffer the negative impact of stress and conflicts, potentially breaking the vicious circles. Findings can be used to develop tailored evidence-based interventions preventing stress and conflicts and promoting individual and relational health conditions among nurses and, overall, fostering wellbeing in the healthcare setting. The theoretical and practical implications of this study will be discussed in detail.