간호사의 감정노동과 사회적 지지, 우울과의 관계

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the level of emotional labor, social support, and depressive symptoms and to examine the relationships among these variables among nurses. By using a self-reported questionnaire, data were collected from 314 nurses who worked in four general hospitals in J province from April to May, 2011. Brotheridge & Lee (2002)'s Emotional Labor Scale translated in Korean and edited by Lee (2006) was used to measure Emotional Labor. The PRQ-Ⅱ, edited by Kim (2000) was used to measure individual support. The perceived Organizational Support scale developed by Kim (1990) was used. The Korean version of the CES-D, validated by Chon et al. (1999) was used to measure depressive symptoms. Collected data were analyzed by using the program SPSS Version 18.0 in which descriptive statistics, and Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression.

The results of this study were as follows. 1. The mean score of total emotional labor of the subjects was 3.28. Deep-acting was a higher than surface-acting. The level of individual support was higher than one of organizational support (mean = 2.75). The mean score of CES-D was 16.92, indicating it to be 'mild depressive symptoms'. Fifty six percent of total subjects suffered from mild or major depressive symptoms.

2. Depressive symptoms were positively correlated with surface-acting (r=.26, p=.001), while it had negative correlation with individual (r=-.39, p<.001) and organizational support (r=-.23, p<.001). Surface-acting was negatively correlated with organizational support (r=-.30, p<.001). In other words, the higher the level of surface-acting was, the higher the level of depressive symptoms was, while the higher the level of perceived individual and organizational support was, the lower the level of depressive symptoms was.

3. The factors which affected significantly the level of depressive symptoms were marital status, individual support, and surface-acting. These factors explained 25.0% of the variance of nurses' depressive symptoms.

In conclusion, this study shows that as the level of surface-acting of the subjects was higher, so was the level of depressive symptoms, while as the level of perceived individual and organizational support was higher, the level of depressive symptoms was lower. Therefore, in order to prevent or manage depressive symptoms of the nurses, it is needed of hospitals to organizational support programs and particularly, as the nurses who are in their 20s, have short working experience, or single show relatively higher level of depressive symptoms, it is urgently required to provide depression symptoms managing programs targeted for those nurses.