Abstract
Married women working on shifts are likely to have greater stress in handling both work and household duties than unmarried women, and their psychosomatic health are adversely affected by the stress. However, Caplan and others assert that the family can provide a support to shift workers in dissipating stress. It is also known that each individual experinces different levels of stress from the same pressure placed on her, depending on how effectively she copes with it. The purpose of this study is to compare the leveis of psychosomatic health of married and unmarried nurse working on shifts and to assess whether the family is actually serving to dissipate stress. The relationship between the types of personality and the level of psychosomatic health is also investigated. Seventy-two nurses working on shifts in five mental hospitals were studied. In order to match the age of the subjects, nurses younger than 40 years were selected from the 72 nurses, and divided into a group consisted of 22 married nurses and group of 24 unmarried nurses. The mean age of the married group was 28.7±7.7 (mean±SD) and that of the unmarried group was 26.4±9.5. The level of psychosomatic health was assessed by GHQ and CMI tests. Personality traits were assessed with YG and MAS tests. GHQ showed no significant differences between the two groups. However CMI revealed, in all cases, that the scores of the married grouop were lower than those of the unmarried group on seven scales in dicating that the married nurses had higher health levels. The subjects with high psychosomatic health ratings were compared with those whose ratings were distinctly low, using YG and MAS tests. The nurses with high health ratisng showed low scores on eight scales in YG and MAS, except for the scale of intellectual extroversion, indicating that they are generally active and optimistic, and experience a low level of anxiety. The results of this study suggest that the family of married nurses functions as a social support in coping with the stress, and that nurses of active, optimistic and calm character remain mentally and physically health.
