Relation between Emotional Stability and Time Management Levels among Nurses at one Day Surgeries Hospital

Introduction

Contemporary organizations around the world increasingly face challenges ranging from downsizing and retrenching, globalization and technological change (Aghion et al., 2014), to financial and geopolitical upheaval in what has been called the new competitive landscape. Such rapid change coupled with new competitors emerging from around the world can stir strong emotions in the workplace, which can have a significant impact on performance even in the largest firms, especially if workplace emotions are not properly managed. This is especially true for firms that have experienced very solid and steady growth for many years, but face increasing disruptive threats from new competitors. Such transformational challenges require that employees manage their emotions well, build trust and adapt to changes quickly rather than treating them like a threat  while maintaining good decision making, innovation, and evaluation practices (Li et al., 2014).

In recent years of industrialization, competition, stress and tension, both young and old face difficulties. These difficulties give rise to many psychosomatic problems such as anxiety, tensions, frustrations, and mental upsets. Therefore, the study of Emotional Stability (ES)that deals with the interplay of forces with intensities and quantities is now gaining recognition. Emotional stability is not only one of the effective determinants of the personality patterns, but it also helps to control the growth of person development. The concept of stable emotional behaviour at any level is that which reflects the fruits of the normal emotional development (Joshi, 2016)..

Nurses face many professional challenges. Their jobs are both physically and mentally draining, and on top of working in extremely stressful, pressure-filled environments they have to deal with a seemingly never-ending array of competing priorities and demands on their time, a ton of diverse patient and colleague personalities, and often-gruelling work schedules (Mahran et al., 2011).

So emotions and nursing work is an area researched in the health care industry, there are four separate abilities within interpersonal intelligence, such as, the skills in forming groups appropriately, negotiating possible solutions for problems, connecting personally and engaging in social analysis. The interpersonal intelligence is an essential part of nursing work as it needs nurses to understand how patients feel, thereby demonstrate empathy in their care. Further, nursing work involves group work, thus necessitating team-work, negotiating, and organizing skills for successful performance at health care industry. Managing emotions in organizations enable the organizing function (Mullakanda &Dissanayake, 2015).

Emotional stability is defined as a property to label the efficiency that an emotional system automatically maintains its equilibrium. Higher emotion stability indicates that an emotion system can recover its equilibrium efficiently (Li et al., 2014). Also according to Ofole, (2017) emotional stability is the process in which the personality is continuously striving for greater sense of emotional health, both intra-physically and intra-personally. It has been emphasized that the emotionally stable individual has the capacity to withstand delay in satisfaction of needs, ability to tolerate a reasonable amount of frustration, belief in long term planning and is capable of delaying or revising his expectations in terms of demands of the situations.

The management of emotions or maintaining emotional stability enables an individual to join or unjoin him/herself from an emotion in a given situation. It further enables the individual to control his/her immediate reactions in the particular situation. When patients are hospitalized for shorter periods of time, there is a need for hospital nurses to be able to form good rapport rapidly with patients. This is necessary for the development of trusting relationships, so that patients feel able to discuss personal, sensitive issues associated with their recovery. Thus, ES of nurses becomes significant factor in health care industry. Thus, care cannot be confined to the physical element but also the psychological and spiritual needs (Mullakanda & Dissanayake, 2015).

Nurses with greater emotional stability are less likely to exhibit strong emotional reactions to stressful situations, and tend to be more proactive and successful in problem‐solving. Effectively managing time is a priority concern in countries where nurses face high pressure (Zapata, 2015). Emotionally stable nurses can thus be expected to achieve better nursing outcomes than emotionally unstable nurses. Emotional stability positively influencing on nursing care quality. Emotionally stable nurses can deal calmly with negative personal emotions without letting them interfere with their rational decision‐making, thus protecting patient safety (Mullakanda &Dissanayake, 2015). 

Time is considered the most valuable commodity in our lives, and the development of other sources is dependent on the presence and availability of time. The key to reaching success in life is to concentrate on effective time management (Pehlivan, 2013). Behavior of time management was first defined in late 1950. Time management means to optimally use the time available and that includes aspects of planning, goal setting, prioritizing goals and activities, communications and delegation (Marquis& Huston, 2012). Individuals can carry out several tasks, perceive their responsibilities and adapt with limitations by managing themselves in a single time through such behavior (Nasri        et al., 2013).

Time management is very important in the nursing profession; because the time wasted by nurses, is the time not spent with the patient and it has a negative effect on the quality of care given to patients (Kaya et al., 2012). Recent changes in hospital caregiving have been effective on the work of nurses and the time used by them. It suggests that nurses are required to work more strictly and smartly due to long work hours in order to carry out more of their day to day tasks, in a limited time (Al Khatib, 2014).

Significance of the study:

Today, nurses job require them to have the ability to have balance between their self -control and emotional stability and managing time at work and care of patient especially in most stressful situations. Through my work in the one day surgeries Samalot Hospital, it was found that most nurses quickly angry, worry and emotionally distressed toward most situations, unable to face their problems, and they didn't  arrange their work.

As when they are anger, stressed or depressed, their time management affected negatively. All these issues may affect the care of patients negatively. So the researcher introducing this studies about emotional stability and its relation with time management because it is vital to the nursing and care of patients.

There were no previous studies which linked those two interrelated variables together, but AbdElhakiem, (2019)studied emotional stability and its relation to decision making at Beni-Suif nursing-Egypt, the study results revealed, a low emotional stability score (81%) of the studied subjects and a low decision making scores of (75.2%) of the studied subjects.

Aim of the study

• The aim of the current study is to assess relation between emotional stability and time management levels among nurses at one day surgeries hospital

Research questions

1. What is the level of emotional stability among nurses at the one day surgeries Samalot Hospital?
2. What is the level of time management among nurses at the one day surgeries Samalot Hospital?
3. Are there a relation between emotional stability and time management levels among nurses at the one day surgeries Samalot Hospital?

Subjects and Methods

Aim of the Study

• The aim of the current study is to assess relation between emotional stability and time management levels among nurses at one day surgeries hospital

Research Design

                Descriptive correlational research design was utilized to fulfill the aim of this study.

Setting:

                The study was conducted the one day surgeries Samalot Hospital located on  Arab El Zeina, Madinet Samalot, El Minia، Minia Governorate, Egypt.

Subjects

The subjects of the study sample were included all staff nurses who working at the one day surgeries Samalot Hospital during the period of data collection with total numbers 159 nurses are classified  as following:

Data collection tools:

Data were collected through the utilization of two tools as follows:

Tool (1): Emotional Stability scale 

It was included two parts:

Part 1: Social demographic data: It used to collect data about nursing staff and encompass item such as age, sex, job, education level, department, years of experience in the nursing field , years of experience in the current department, residence, and attended any workshops related to time management or emotional stability.

Part 2: Emotional Stability questionnaire

This tool developed by Abo Mostafa (2015) to test   emotional stability of nurses. It consists of 27items with five likert scale ranged as (5=always, 4=often, 3= sometimes, 2=rarely, and 1=never).The scoring system was ranged from (27 to 135), and it divided into three levels as follow:

• Low emotional stability level from 27 to63.
• Moderate emotional stability level from 64 to 100.
• High emotional stability level from 101 to 135.

Tool (2): Time management scale

This part developed by Gazawy(2012) to assess the time management among nurses. It consisted of 53 items; and it was divided into 8 dimensions as follow: fulfillment of obligations(7 items);district control(6 items); time planning (9 items);setting of priorities (7 items);discipline in the use of time(6 items); uses of resources (8 items);Negotiation requirements (4 items); and balance of lifestyle (6 items)  . Each item was measured by 5 likert scale ranged as: (strongly agree=5, agree= 4, neutral =3 disagree =2, strongly disagree =1). The scoring system was ranged from (53 to 265), and it divided into three levels as follow:

• Low time management from 53 to123.
• Moderate time management from 124 to 194.
• High time management from 195 to 265

Validity of Tools:

The tools were tested for the face validity by a jury of 5 experts in the field of Nursing Administration. The jury composed of one Professor, and one assistant Professor from Faculty of Nursing, Minia University also one Assistant Professors, and two Professors from Faculty of Nursing, Assuit University. Each of the expert panel was asked to examine the instrument for content coverage, clarity, wording, length, format and overall appearance. No necessary modification was done from jury panel.

Reliability of Tools:

Reliability of the tool was performed to confirm consistency of tool. The internal consistency measured to identify the extent to which the items of the tool measure the same concept and correlate with each other by Cronbach’s alpha test. The Cronbach‘s alpha for the tools categorized as follow:

Pilot Study:

A pilot study was conducted on 10% of participants which equal of staff nurses (14 nurses+2head nurse 16=) from the one day surgeries Samalot Hospital, to ascertain the clarity, comprehensiveness and applicability of the tools as well as to estimate the appropriate time required to fill the tool. Based on pilot study there was no modification done, and it was added to final results.

Data Collection Procedure:

• Written approvals were obtained from administrative authorities.
• Meet director of the one day surgeries Samalot Hospital to gain cooperation
• Oral consent from the each participant after explain the aim of this study
•  Data was collected using a self-administered tool covering staff nurses data and  two tools.
• The tools were distributed to all the staff nurses after explaining the purpose and process of data collection.
• Staff nurses were given from 25 minute to 30 minute to answer them.
• The data collection were collected through three months from beginning of August to end of October 2020

Administrative Design:

1. A written initial approval was obtained from the research ethics committee of the Faculty of Nursing, Minia University.

2. Permission to conduct the study was obtained from the Dean of the Faculty of Nursing, Minia University .

3. Permission to conduct the study was obtained from director of the one day surgeries Samalot Hospital and head of each department.               

Ethical Consideration:

a)       A written consent was obtained from each participant to collect the study data before data collection. After explanation of the purpose of the study, the privacy and confidentiality of the answers were guaranteed by the researcher.

b)       Each assessment sheet was coded and participants' names not appeared on the sheets for the purpose of anonymity and confidentiality.

c)       The participants were informed that their participation in the study was completely voluntary and there was no harm if they not participate in the study.

Statistical analysis

• The data obtained from the study tools were categorized, tabulated, analyzed and data entry was performed using the SPSS software (statistical package for social sciences version (25.0).
• Descriptive statistics were applied (e.g. mean, standard deviation, frequency and    percentage). Tests of significance were performed to test the study data.
• Pearson's correlation coefficient was applied between quantitative variables. A significant level value was considered when P <0.05.

Results

Table (1) distribution of the personal data regarding to study subjects (no=159).

Figure (1) distribution of nurse staff regarding to their sex (no=159).

Figure (2) distribution of nurse staff regarding to their job position (no=159).

Figure (3) distribution of nurse staff regarding to their residence (no=159).

Figure (4) distribution of nurse staff regarding to their departments (no=159).

Table (1) shows that (55.3%) of nurses age are ranged from 34-43 years old, with mean age 34.52+5.687. Concerning the marital status, it notes that the majority (84.9%) of them are married. About highest percent (57.9%) of them are diploma degrees. Regarding nurses years of experience (52.2%) are 11-20years, with mean 12.19+6.376.

The figure (1) explains that (65.4%) of nurses are female. The majority (91.8% &90.6%) of them are nurses and from rural area respectively show in figure (2 &3). Also figure (4) demonstrates that (18.9%) of them working on (ICU, DU& OR).                                                                                            

Figure (5) Percentage distribution of staff nurses total emotional stability at the one-day surgeries Samalot Hospital (no =159)

Figure (5) illustrates that the majority of the sample (85.5%) have moderate level of emotional stability, moreover (12.6% & 1.9%) of them have high level and low level of emotional stability respectively.

Figure (6) Percentage distribution of staff nurses about total time management at the one-day surgeries Samalot Hospital (no =159)

                Figure (6) demonstrates that the majority of the sample (79.9%) have moderate level of time management, moreover (20.1%) of them have high levels of time management.

Table (2) correlation between emotional stability, time management and its dimensions among head nurses and nurses (N= 159)

 Table (18) shows that there positive correlation between emotional stability, time management and its dimensions among nurses