JOB STRESS DETERMINANTS AND CAPACITY BUILDING IN PUBLIC HOSPITALS IN PLATEAU STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Inadequate manpower among public hospitals creates gap for the employers to fill with the sole aim of building manpower to capacity. This is expected to improve health care system. In view of the need to build a vibrant manpower planning in public hospitals, the main aim of this study attempts to determine the impact of job stress on service delivery in public hospitals in Plateau State. The specific objectives of the study are to: determine impact of manpower shortage, role conflict, and workload on job stress in selected public hospitals; and correspondingly investigate their impact on service delivery in selected public hospitals. The study covers the public hospitals in Jos Metropolis. Data were sourced from the nurses in Federal hospitals and State hospitals located in Jos Metropolis. Various descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the collected data. The findings revealed that: manpower shortages, role conflict, and workload accounted for 80.9% of job stress in public hospitals and are significant. Similarly, investigation of impact of manpower shortages and workloads on service delivery revealed negative results while job stress has positive impact on service delivery. Based on these findings, the study concluded that a reduction in job stress leads to good service delivery while increased shortage in manpower and workloads lead to poor service delivery. Hence, the study recommends that due to increasing job stress in public hospitals, the management of the selected hospitals need to intensify efforts to recruit qualified health workers so as to reduce workloads and job stress on the existing workers. This will also lead to efficient service delivery among workers. The study also recommends that there is a need to specifically detail out the job specification for individuals’ health workers so as to avoid role conflict among staff as this will reduce long queue for patients seeking health care services.