Abstract:

Objective To investigate the status of loneliness and social support of nurses in tuberculosis wards, and to understand the correlation between loneliness and social support.Methods From September 5th to September 30th, 2018, 113 nurses in the tuberculosis wards of the Public Health Clinical Center of Chengdu were surveyed with UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3) and Social support rate scale (SSRS). A total of 91 valid questionnaires were collected with an effective response rate of 80.5%. Pearson correlation analysis was used to explore the correlation between them.Results The loneliness score of 91 nurses was 41.43±9.73. 25.3% (23/91) of nurses had mild loneliness, 58.2% (53/91) had moderate loneliness, and 13.2% (12/91) had moderately severe loneliness and 3.3% (3/91) had severe loneliness. The total score of social support was 44.75±8.32. The scores of subjective support, objective support and utilization rate of social support in three dimensions were 27.20±6.51, 9.45±2.99, and 8.10±2.12 respectively. 46.2% (42/91) of nurses had medium social support level, 53.8% (49/91) had high social support level. Pearson correlation analysis showed that there was significant correlation between loneliness and the score of social support (r=-0.61, P=0.000), subjective support (r=-0.58, P=0.000) and utilization of support (r=-0.50, P=0.000) among tuberculosis nurses.Conclusion Nurses in tuberculosis wards have a higher sense of loneliness with moderate and high level social support. Loneliness has a significant correlation with social support, and improving the social support of nurses can reduce their loneliness.

Key words: Tuberculosis, Nursing staff, hospital, Loneliness, Social support, Questionnaires, Causality, Data interpretation, statistical