Relationship between perceived stress and quality of life of nurses working in COVID-19 wards

BACKGROUND: Stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a lack of concentration and lack of energy to achieve career goals, fatigue, poor performance, burnout and reduced quality of life of many people, especially nurses. METHODS: This descriptive-analytical study was completed with the aim of determining the relationship between perceived stress and quality of life of nurses working in the care wards for patients with COVID-19 in hospitals affiliated with the Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences (Mazandaran, Iran) during 2020-2021. Inclusion criteria included willingness to participate in the study, having at least a bachelor's degree in nursing and working in care wards of patients with COVID-19. Data collection tools included a demographic information questionnaire, Cohen Perceived Stress Questionnaire and WHO Quality of Life Questionnaire. Frequency, percentage, Mean and standard deviation indices were used to describe the variables. Also, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and Spearman correlation coefficients were used to ass the relationship between variables. RESULTS: The Mean (SD) age of participants was 33.48 (6.64) years. Most were female (%73.3). The total scores of quality of life and perceived stress variables of nurses were 47.63+-24.31 and 27.62+-4.61, respectively. Nurses' scores of quality-of-life domains included physical health, psychological, social relationships and environmental domain were (46.52+-12.69, 46.57+-12.70, 46.39+-19.45 and 50.52+-10.52), respectively. Nurses' quality of life had a direct significant relationship with the variables of sleep quality and job satisfaction (P