A Sequential Explanatory Approach on the Prevalence and Correlation of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress among Critical Care Nurses of Public and Private Hospitals in Metro Manila

Abstract

Healthcare nurses in intensive care units deal with patients with severe and life-threatening illnesses and injuries which may affect their overall mental well-being. These patients require constant monitoring and support not only from a team of highly trained medical professionals such as doctors and nurses but also from medical equipment and medications to return to the body’s normal functioning. The environment of intensive care units can be very demanding since healthcare nurses are exposed to traumatic situations and stressful events so the psychological effects on them as a result of working in the ICU are relatively unclear. These health professionals can be directly influenced because they work with these diseases and the emotions involved in this job encompass a tiring and distressing process which demands conscious or unconscious coping mechanisms so that an individual’s disease or suffering do not interfere in workers’ mental and physical health. However, these mechanisms are not always effective in aiding these individuals to adjust to these situations. This research sought to identify the prevalence of anxiety, depression, and stress among critical care nurses in the ICUs of selected public and private hospitals in Metro Manila. This utilized a sequential explanatory method constituted by a quantitative data collection using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale Short Form (DASS-21) and a qualitative data collection utilizing a semi-structured interview guide. In conclusion, intervening variables such as coping strategies combined with the independent variables (sociodemographic profile, depression scores, anxiety scores, and stress scores) indeed influence the dependent variable. It is through the variety of coping mechanisms that they were able to obtain depression, anxiety, and stress scores within the normal level, so the result is a normally functioning critical care nurse in a public or private hospital despite the rigorous job demands of the work environment.