Role of Humor in Reducing Job Stress and Depression

Role of liquid body substance in Reducing dividing line foc utilize and embossmentThe Role of fancy in Reducing Job Stress and Depression among NursesAbstractStudies show that it is very important to reduce trading stress and belief of nurses. The main objective of this information was to research the role of pique in cut job stress and depression among nurses. The study took place at hospitals in Iran. After distri furthering questionnaires, 210 accurate questionnaires have been used for data analysis. This enquiry was conducted victimization three separate Questionnaires card (Khoshouei et al. 2009), stress (Cohen, Kamarck, and Mermelstein, 1983), and depression (Radloff, 1977). Structural Equation cast (SEM) was conducted to examine the relationship between humor, job stress and depression. The finding showed that humor has a negative repair on job stress and depression with a significant path coefficient at -0.65 and -0.76. In addition, Job stress has a positive impa ct on depression with a significant path coefficient at 0.71. The results of research showed that humor could be considered as a predictor of reducing job stress and depression and job stress could be considered as a predictor of depression.Keywords mode, Job stress, Depression, Nurse1. IntroductionThe role of nursing is associated with multiple and conflicting demands imposed by nurse supervisors and managers, and by medical and administrative staff. such(prenominal) a situation appears to lead to clobber overload and possible to role conflict. One of the most significant risks nurses are exposed to in their run short is stress. numerous recent studies have explored work stress among health care personnel in many countries. Stress can have a significant impact on individual nurses and their ability to accomplish tasks and more specifically, poor decision-making, drop of concentration, apathy, decreased motivation and anxiety may impair job performance creating uncharacteristi c errors (Jones, Tanigawa, and Weisse, 2003)Stress, up to a certain point, will improve peoples performance and quality of life because it is healthy and essential that they should experience challenges within their lives, but if pressure becomes excessive, it loses its beneficial effect and becomes harmful (Moustaka, and Constantinidis, 2010). Evidence shows that stress has a negative impact on human body, regarding to its biological, psychological and spiritual dimensions (Chinery, 2007 Lambert and Lambert, 2008)Concerning to the work related stress, health professions were forgotten for a time but recent research has contributed to include these practitioners in the group of the most exposed to stress repayable to the particular characteristics of their job (Amaro and Jesus, 2008).It is important to recognize that stress is a state, not an illness, which may be experienced as a result of an exposure to a wide range of work demands and in turn can contribute to an equally wide ra nge of outcomes, which may concern the employees health and be an illness or an injury, or changes in his/her behavior and lifestyle (Moustaka, and Constantinidis, 2010).Many research projects have been done to study the antecedences of stress and depression so far. Stress management and reducing the stress in individual is a key concept in organizational behavior. One of factor that has an impact in reducing the stress and depression is humor. Humor has been recognized in the literature as a complex and personal phenomenon regarding its multidimensional nature and the different meanings that people prop to the concept. Thereby, although this complex concept has been largely studied by the health and social sciences, no commonly accepted definition was suggested (Santos and Jose, 2012). Romero and Cruthirds (2006) define humor as peculiar communications that produce positive emotions and cognitions in the individual, group, or organization. In the management literature, humor is d efined as a message whose ingenuity, verbal skill, and/or incongruity has the power to evoke joke (Bergeron, and Vachon, 2008). Although thither are examples of studies of humor, the literature is most often conceptual, and does not empirically examine the value of humor for attend to organizations. The aim of this research is to study the role of humor in reducing job stress and depression among nurses.2. Hypothesis development literature review shows that there are four contributing factors that make defining humor difficult (Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran , 2012)(1) Humor and sense of humor are often used interchangeably(2) Humor is multi-dimensional(3) Humor is quantified in various ways and(4) There are positive and negative humor styles.In check 1 the five humor styles has been displayed.Figure 1. Five humor styles (Moshref Javadi et al. 2013)Research supports humor as an excellent stress management tool. Many people find that maintaining a sense of humor is serviceable for a good quality of life. Sense of humor gives the ability to find delight, experience joy, and release tension. Studies show the existence of an intrinsic connection between humor and the stress level (Santos and Jose, 2012). The results of the study previously carried out by Astedt-Kurki and Liukkonen (1994), indicated that humor takes an important role on the management of work related stress. Humor and laughter are a powerful emotional medicine that can lower stress, dissolve anger, and unite people in troubled times.Humor in the oeuvre has been identified as beneficial (Hoption et al. 2013). Having a great sense of humor provides many clear advantages. It increases energy and gives a feeling of well-being by bear upon the release of chemicals, such as endorphins and adrenaline (Miller, 1996). It decrease depression, anxiety and stress, as well as enhance ones mood, immunity to illness, and life/family satisfaction. As you can see in Figure 2, employee humor has impact in emplo yee health like burnout, stress, health and coping effectiveness.Figure 2. Employee humor outcomes (Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran , 2012)Depression among nurses may be linked to the high level of their stress. Nurses can be a high-risk occupational population for experiencing depressive symptoms because of high job demands and complex environmental conditions (Gelsema et al., 2005). Literature review shows that stress has a significant association with depression (Chiang and Chang, 2012).Hence, hypotheses are formulated as followH1 Humor has a negative impact on job stressH2 Humor has a negative impact on depressionH3 Job stress has a positive impact on depression.On the basis of theoretical background the following conceptual model is developed.Figure 3. Conceptual framework3. MethodologyA survey/questionnaire research was conducted to test the research hypothesis.3.1. SampleThe study took place at hospitals in Iran. Data were gathered from self-reported questionnaires by 210 nurse s. Regarding the demographic information, most participants were female (60 percent), age from 20 to 50 geezerhood old, 70 percent were married, working tenure between 1 to more than 10 years, and all of them were academic educated. The characteristics of the participants are described in skirt 1. duck 1.Demographic characteristicsDemographic variablesN=210GenderFemaleMale12684Age20-3031-4041-501138116Marital statusSingleMarried63147 functional tenureLess than 2 years2-10 yearsMore than 10 years11147523.2. InstrumentsThis research was conducted using three separate instruments.3.2.1. Humor questionnaireHumor was assessed using the Sense of Humor Questionnaire (SHQ) developed by Khoshouei et al. (2009). The SHQ is a 25-item, 5-points Likert-type scale (1 refers to strongly disagree and 5 refers to strongly agree).3.2.2. Stress questionnaireStress was assessed using the Perceived Stress Scale, 10-item version (PSS-10) (Cohen, Kamarck, and Mermelstein, 1983). In this scale the respon se options range is from 0 (never) to 4 (very often), with higher scores indicating greater stress.3.2.3. Depression questionnaireDepression was assessed using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) (Radloff, 1977). The CES-D is a 20-item, 4-point Likert-type scale (1 refers to rarely or none of the time and 4 refers to most or all of the time).Cronbachs of import was used to estimate the reliability of internal consistency. Table 2 shows the reliability of questionnaires.Table 2. Reliability analysisQuestionnaireSourceHumor(Khoshouei et al. 2009)0.76Stress(Cohen, Kamarck, and Mermelstein, 1983)0.79Depression(Radloff, 1977)0.84As you can see in Table 2 none of the reliability estimates fell below 0.70, so the scale reliabilities were considered acceptable.3.3. Data analysisAfter examination the reliability of the questionnaires, the measurement models and research hypotheses was tested. For this purpose, geomorphologic equation modeling was conducted to tes t the hypotheses and to examine the relationships among the variables. We relied on several statistics to evaluate the goodness-of-fit of the models that includes RMSEA, GFI, NFI, CFI and CMIN/df. Two statistical programs, SPSS 18 and Amos 21, were utilise to conduct the data analyses.4. ResultsFirst three measurement models were separately analyzed. Table 3 shows fit indices of the measurement models.Table 3. Fit indices of measurement modelsCMIN/dfCFINFIGFIRMSEAModel1.690.9530.9120.9180.021Humor1.240.9160.9090.9410.056Stress2.730.9250.9280.9370.072Depression90%90%90%Acceptable amountComparing the amount of fit indices and their acceptable amount shows that overall fit of the measurement models is acceptable.For testing the research hypotheses, structural equation modeling has been used. Table 4 shows the fit indices of the structural model. The results in Table 4 shows the values of fit indices all reach the acceptable amount.Table 4. Fit indices of the structural modelCMIN/dfCFI NFIGFIRMSEAModel2.350.9110.9270.9390.0651structural90%90%90%Acceptable amountTwo indices named critical ratio (CR) and P have been used for testing the meaning of hypotheses. If CR1.96 then in the significance level of 0.05 are confirmed the hypotheses. Table 5 shows the hypotheses and regression coefficients.Table 5. Results of hypotheses testResultPCRHypotheses back up0.004.268-0.65Humor has a negative impact on job stress back up0.003.634-0.76Humor has a negative impact on depressionSupported0.005.1650.71Job stress has a positive impact on depression.As Table 5 shows, humor has a negative impact on job stress and depression with a significant path coefficient at -0.65 and -0.76. In addition, Job stress has a positive impact on depression with a significant path coefficient at 0.71.5. ConclusionHigher level of workloads with limited amount of nursing staffs can cause a variety of negative outcomes such as work stress and depression (Chiang and Chang, 2012) so it is very important to reduce job stress and depression of nurses. The main objective of this study was to explore the role of humor in reducing job stress and depression among nurses. Another objective of this research was to determine the effectuate of job stress on depression. The finding showed that humor has a negative impact on job stress and depression with a significant path coefficient at -0.65 and -0.76. In addition, Job stress has a positive impact on depression with a significant path coefficient at 0.71. The results of research showed that humor could be considered as a predictor of reducing job stress and depression and job stress could be considered as a predictor of depression.This research creates an important implication for managers of organization. The results of this study state that having a sense of humor is a powerful way to reduce job stress and depression. As previous researches showed employee humor is associated with enhanced work performance, satisfaction, workgroup cohesi on, health, and coping effectiveness, as well as decreased burnout, stress, and work withdrawal (Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran, 2012). Creating a humorous workplace is an important factor that must be considered by managers of organizations. Employees with a sense of humor and a humorous workplace can reduce job stress and depression among nurses. The main limitation of this research was the nurses lack of time in responding to the questionnaires. This research aimed to analyze the role of humor in reducing job stress and depression among nurses the study can be performed in the other organizations and other countries for more confirmation of results.ReferencesAmaro, H., and de Jesus, S. N. (2008), Vulnerabilidade ao Stresse em Profissionais de Emergncia Mdica Pr-Hospitalar, Mudanas Psicologia da Sade, 16, 62-70.Astedt-Kurki, P., and Liukkonen, A. (1994), Humor in nursing care, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 20, 183-188.Bergeron, J., and Vachon, M. A. (2008), The effects of humor usa ge by financial advisors in sales encounters, International Journal of Bank Marketing, 26(6), 376 398. http//dx.doi.org/10.1108/02652320810902424.Chiang, Y. M., and Chang, Y. C. (2012). Stress, depression, and intention to leave among nurses in different medical units Implications for health care management/nursing practice, Health Policy, 108, 149 157. http//dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2012.08.027.Chinery, W. (2007), Alleviating stress with humor a literature review, Journal of Perioperative Practice, 17, 172-182.Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., and Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and cordial Behavior, 24, 38596. http//dx.doi.org/10.2307/2136404.Gelsema, T. I, van der Doef, M., Maes, S., Akerboom, S., and Verhoeven, C. (2005), Job stress in the nursing profession the inuence of organizational and environmental conditions and job characteristics. International Journal of Stress Management, 12(3), 22240. http//dx.doi.org/10.1037/1072-5245.1 2.3.222Hoption, C., Barling, L. and Turner, N. (2013), Its not you, its me transformational lead and self-deprecating humor, Leadership Organization Development Journal, 34(1), 4 19. http//dx.doi.org/10.1108/01437731311289947Jones, D., Tanigawa, T., and Weisse, S. (2003). Stress management and workplace disability in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Journal of Occupational Health, 45, 1-7. http//dx.doi.org/10.1539/joh.45.1.Lambert, V. A., and Lambert, C. E. (2008), Nurses workplace stressors and coping strategies, Indian Journal of Palliative Care, 14, 38-44. http//dx.doi.org/10.4103/0973-1075.41934.Mesmer-Magnus, J., Glew, D. J, and Viswesvaran, C. (2012), A meta-analysis of positive humor in the workplace, Journal of Managerial Psychology, 27(2), 155 190. http//dx.doi.org/10.1108/02683941211199554.Miller, J. (1996), Humor an empowerment tool for the 1990s, Empowerment in Organizations, l.4(2), 16-21. http//dx.doi.org/10.1108/09684899610118046Moshref Javadi, M. H., Salehzadeh, R., and Hoseini poor, S. (2013).Studying the kindred between Humor and Organizational Citizenship Behavior, International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management scientific disciplines, 3(3), 146-151. http//dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARAFMS/v3-i3/100.Moustaka, E., Constantinidis, T. C. (2010), Sources and effects of Work-related stress in nursing, Health Science Journal, 4(4), 210-216.Radloff, L. S. (1977), The CES-D Scale a self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 385401. http//dx.doi.org/10.1177/014662167700100306.Romero, E. J., and Cruthirds, K. W. (2006), The use of humor in the workplace, Academy of Management Perspectives, 20(2), 58-69. http//dx.doi.org/10.5465/amp.2006.20591005.Santos, M. I., and Jose, H. (2012). Humor and Health Practitionaires Stress, Humor contributions in stress management, Advanced Research in Scientific Areas, 1022-1026.