Assessment of anxiety level among nurses at Teaching Hospitals in Hawler city

Abstract EN

Background and objectives : Anxiety reflects the psychological and physical states required to deal with an emergency.

It is also a normal way of reacting to a number of demanding situations.

Anxiety disorder : refers to a group of conditions the affected person experiences persistent anxiety that they cannot dismiss and it interferes with their daily activities the aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of anxiety among nurses at teaching hospitals in Erbil city and determine the association between socio-demographic characteristics and anxiety.

Methods : A descriptive study was conducted between (26th June -25thAugest 2011) in (4) teaching hospitals in Erbil city.

A sample of (160 nurses) were selected to participate in the study, a questionnaire was applied which was composed of two parts sociodemographic information and Zung anxiety scale).

) Zung self-rating anxiety scale used which includes 20 questions and each question has 4 responses that are ranked from 0 to 4 and the client selects one response that is more suitable with his emotional state.

The final score was classified according to Zung score key as ; 20-44 normal range, 45-59 mild to moderate anxiety level, 60-74 marked to severe anxiety level and 75-80 extreme anxiety level.

SPSS (version 19) was used to analyze the data.

Result : the study result revealed that (1 8.1 %) of nurses had anxiety, among them 15 % had mild to moderate anxiety, 3.1 % had severe anxiety.

There is no statistically significant relationship between anxiety among nurses and Socio-demographic data of the study sample ; we also find that anxiety is more in Maternity Hospital nurses and more common in female nurses.

Conclusion : There were high levels of anxiety among nurses in teaching hospitals, which necessitate attention to their work environment, especially those who work in maternity hospitals.