Psychosomatic Stress Responses Perceived by Nurses: A Literature Review

Background: The nurses working rotating day/evening/night shift experienced severe gastrointestinal and musculoskeletal symptoms, and reported an extended working day, more stressful working environmental risk factors, and additional strenuous work, which they were less able to control with their work pace as stressors. Aim: The aim of the literature review was to summarize the available literature on the main sources to determine the psychosomatic stress responses perceived by nurses. Method: A comprehensive literature search from January 2005 to March 2019 was conducted from national and international journals, e-library, PubMed, and Google search to locate all the articles on psychosomatic stress response in nursing using the keywords: nurses, stress, physiological and psychological problems. Findings: The study revealed that nurses had a negative impact on their psychological well-being due to the recurrent changes in the work environment, and a high work pace aggravates the psychological strain, stress, acute fatigue, chronic fatigue, musculoskeletal symptoms, lack of sleep, negative influence on nurses’ lifestyle behaviors, and poor interpersonal relationship in nurses. Conclusion: The study findings revealed that the work environment in hospitals was stressful and the nurses working in rotating day/evening/night shift experienced psychological and physiological health problems. There is a need to implement stress prevention intervention to support nurses in managing psychosomatic stress responses to facilitate healthy lifestyles.