Relation between Head Nurses Situational Leadership and Nurses’ Occupational Stress at Intensive Care Units

Background: Situational leadership is particularly important for intensive care head nurses to help them to modify their leadership style to fit the needs of staff nurses and mitigate nurses occupational stress. Aim: To assess the relation between head nurses' situational leadership and nurses’ occupational stress at intensive care units. Design: A descriptive -correlational design was used in this study. Setting: The study was conducted in intensive care units at Tanta University Main Hospital. Subjects: A convenience sample of all head nurses 28 and a stratified proportional randomized sampling of intensive care nurses 265. Tool: two tools for data collection were used, Head nurses Situational Leadership Questionnaire and Occupational Stress Questionnaire Results: 50.0% of head nurses had a moderate level of leader effectiveness and 25% of them had a high level of leader effectiveness. 64.2% of nurses had low level of occupational stress. Conclusion: There was a significant negative correlation between head nurses’ situational leadership and nurses’ occupational stress. Recommendations: Implement workshops and courses for head nurses on situational leadership, ethical decision-making, and conflict resolution. Establish nursing committees that allow IC nurses to participate in clinical and operational decisions in order to increase nurses empowerment.