Factors Predicting Stress among Nurses in the Situation of Unrest of the Four Southern Border Provinces of Thailand

Stress is a significant health problem among nurses working in areas of political unrest and war.  It can pose a negative impact on local health systems. This study aimed to explore the relationship of factors and their ability to predict stress. Factors included the severity of the situation of unrest, sense of coherence, commitment, self-efficacy, and social support that exists among nurses in these situations. The subjects were 300 nurses selected by multi-stage random sampling. Data were analyzed using Pearson’s product-moment correlation, and stepwise multiple regression. The results indicated that the severity of the situation of unrest was positively significantly associated with stress among nurses at a high level (r = .527, p < .01) and sense of coherence (r = - .272, p < .01) was negatively significantly associated with stress among nurses at a low level.The severity of the situation of unrest, sense of coherence, and social support together predicted 32.2 % of the variance in stress among nurses. The severity of the situation of unrest was the most significant predictor of stress (27.7 %), followed by sense of coherence (3.4 %) and social support (2.1 %). Two factors associated with stress were the severity of the situation of unrest and sense of coherence, and three factors that predicted stress among nurses were the severity of the situation of unrest, sense of coherence, and social support. The findings can be used as basic data for nursing administrators to plan actions to prevent and deal with stress among nurses in situations of unrest by focusing on such predicting factors.