Nursing team stress in intensive therapy units

This study aimed to characterize the stress of the nursing team in an intensive care unit. It is an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional and quantitative study conducted between April and June 2016, with 93 professionals from the nursing team of three public hospitals in São Luís do Maranhão, Brazil. Three questionnaires, a semi-structured one composed by socioeconomic and occupational data, the Stress Inventory in Nursesand the Stress Symptom Scale were used. It was observed that 83.9% were women, 44.1% were aged between 26 and 35 years, 31.2% with income from 3 to 4 minimum wages, 4.3% presented low stress level, 72.04 % moderate and 23.65% high. The stressors were: "lack of material needed for work", "providing care for serious patients" and "working in an unhealthy environment". In the scale of physical symptoms: "muscular pains" and "constant fatigue" were the most predominant; the psychological ones were: "worrying excessively about things in general", "being more emotional" and "irritability". Conclusion: stress impairs the quality of life at work, physical, psychic and emotional health, interferes in the quality of service provided and in interpersonal relationships. Therefore, there is a need to implement strategies that reduce stressful stimuli in the work environment.