Determination of Self-Critical Rumination levels and work stress levels in intensive care nurses: a descriptive, cross-sectional and relational study

Abstract This study aims to determine the levels of self-critical rumination and work stress among intensive care nurses. The research is descriptive and cross-sectional. The sample of the study consists of 131 nurses working in intensive care units. Personal Information Form, Self-Critical Rumination Scale and Work Stress Scale were used to collect the data. Mann Whitney U test and Kruskall Wallis test were used to analyze the data, and the Spearman correlation coefficient was used to examine the relationship between variables. The significance level was taken as p < 0.05. In the study, it was determined that the mean scores of the Self-Critical Rumination Scale and the Work Stress Scale were moderate. The data revealed a high level of positive correlation between the Self-Critical Rumination Scale and the Work Stress Scale. Therefore, it was concluded that the increase in the stress levels of the nurses can also increase the self-critical rumination process. Although there are studies examining the overall stress experienced by intensive care nurses in the working environment in the nursing literature, studies examining the stress levels in an individual sense have not been carried out. Thus, this study can give an idea about individual stress levels since the self-critical rumination levels and work stress levels of intensive care nurses are examined together. In this context, our study is important because it is field-specific and original, and we believe that it will shed a light for future studies.