The article provided background information that nurses work great under heavy pressure and then goes on to say that stress may affect dissatisfaction, burnout, and poor performance. They then state that there are plenty of studies to show that there is a negative relationship between stress and job performance. So higher stress levels will lead to a lower job performance. But they were also studies to show that the relationship was positive. So, they begin to question what was causing this to happen? “U-shaped relationship or a positive relationship between work stress and job performance asserted that a possible explanation for these inconsistent results might be existing variables to moderate the effect of stress on performance.” They come to find Folkman’s study that showed that coping can reduce stress. Therefore, they come to the question of what effects does coping have on stress and job performance?

They decided to give out surveys to nurses in Heilongjiang Province, China asking questions like with methods of coping they use (positive coping methods and negative coping methods), how much stress they have, how much they perform and various sub questions to those questions. They then take their results and use statistical analysis to determine what relationships were strong and what were not. They concluded that negative coping methods determined workload, job performance, and various other things and positive coping methods determined patient care and job performance. Importantly for our sake positive and negative coping methods both affected job performance. “We also found that coping strategies had moderating effects on some of the work stress subscales and job performance. Negative coping methods affected job performance negatively and positive coping methods affected job performance positively. “In addition, positive coping strategies were positively correlated with job performance and negative coping strategies were negatively correlated with job performance.

How can I apply this? Well I can’t so much apply this into my study, but it is a something to look out for when coming to our conclusion. We didn’t take coping mechanisms into account so should we see any inconsistency’s it could well be that our subjects use various coping methods. From table 2 we find that positive coping methods were used more but they were roughly the same. So, should we see results from some data points that are inconsistent with others we will take those out and consider it as possible different coping mechanisms. We will still address it, but we will handle the situation when it comes.

Li Li, et al. “Moderating Effects of Coping on Work Stress and Job Performance for Nurses in Tertiary Hospitals: A Cross-Sectional Survey in China.” BMC Health Services Research, vol. 17, June 2017, pp. 1–8. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/s12913-017-2348-3.