Abstract: The authors discuss the usefulness of a generic tool to measure job stress in New Zealand workplaces, and report on a study using one such generic tool. The study involved sending questionnaires to all staff (193) who had worked at a regional women's health service for a minimum of six months. The mailed package contained the Job Stress Survey (JSS), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), demographic questions (including cultural safety), shift work questions, and a blank page for “qualitative comment”. Over 12,000 pieces of data were collected from the study but this article focuses only on the results of the JSS. The JSS can be used to determine a “job stress index” and can also be used to measure “job pressure” and “lack of organisational support”. For this study, job stress index scores were calculated and organised by occupational groupings. Midwives, nurses and doctors all cited inadequate or poor quality equipment, excessive paperwork, insufficient personal time, and frequent interruptions, as their top stressors. Three of these four stressors fall within the job pressure index. The results of the survey prompted organisational changes, including: extensive discussions; equipment being updated; management being made aware of the depth of concern felt by staff; the creation of a place for staff to have personal time; and coping intervention strategies were initiated. The authors suggest that no generic measure of job stress can fully evaluate stressors unique to a particular work setting. They support additional items being constructed and administered to assess stressors that are idiosyncratic to a particular occupational group.

Abstract: This is the first New Zealand study to use the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Phase Model of Burnout to determine the extent and severity of burnout in a population of 1134 nurses. Burnout is conceptualised as a syndrome consisting of three components-emotional exhaustion, reduced personal accomplishment and depersonalisation of clients or patients that occurs in individuals who work in the human service professions, particularly nursing. It has been observed that nurses are at a high risk of burnout and burnout has been described as the 'professional cancer' of nursing. Results revealed an overall 'low to average' level of burnout, suggesting that New Zealand nurses, apart from those in the 41-45 age group, are doing better than expected insofar as they are managing to avoid or not progress to the advanced phases of burnout. Possible explanations and directions for future research are presented.