Title : Between duty and distress: Occupational stress and performance in maternal-child health nursing
Abstract:
Maternal and child health nursing is essential to safeguard human lives, yet professionals must navigate a demanding dual role as clinicians and educators within environments that requires intense emotional involvement and constant exposure to critical human vulnerability. This structural multiplicity of roles, combined with a increasing demand for maternity services, severely tests the psychological boundaries of nurses and threatens professional performance. This mixed-methods study analyzed the subsequent psychological experiences of occupational stress and their perceived impact on the performance of maternal and child health nurses at Mavalane General Hospital, Maputo. The Stress Questionnaire for Health Professionals was administered to 22 nurses, followed by semi-structured interviews with 16 who exhibited moderate to extreme stress. Quantitative results revealed an overall moderate stress mean, with critical distress affecting 36.4% of the sample. Career progression, salary insufficiency and work overload emerged as primary statistical stressors. Thematic analysis disclosed that these structural burdens, compounded by severe supply deficits and public stigmatization, manifest in acute psychological outcomes, namely profound professional identity crises, intense vocational frustration, systemic detachment difficulties, and active intentions to leave the specialty. Crucially, nurses perceived that these emotional states directly polarize clinical performance. While some maintain operational impartiality, others suffer from cognitive concentration deficits and behavioral delays that result in severe operational errors. Unresolved occupational stress severely compromises nurses’ well-being and directly threatens patient safety, demanding immediate psychological and managerial interventions.
Keywords: Occupational Health Psychology, Occupational Stress, Maternal and Child Health Nursing, Professional Performance, Hospital Setting
