Abstract
Objective: To explore the socio-cultural and religious
stressors among nurses in public hospitals of Multan
city, Pakistan.
Methodology: This exploratory study was carried out
in gynecological wards of three public hospitals from
22nd May, 2020 to 14th September, 2020. We
interviewed 63 registered nurses through sequential
sampling technique. Thematic analysis was applied to
the manually transcribed data.
Results: The major socio-cultural erroneous
perceptions about nurses were disputed familial
relationships, delayed marriage due to bad reputation
of nurses, domination on household, financial support
provision for natal family and overlooking parental
responsibilities. Beyond this, misogynistic labels, nonprofessionalism, lack of competency and inappropriate
anomalous profession for females were the major
socio-cultural stigmatizations. These stigmatizations
were also aligned with religious stressors such as
deviating from the religious concept of female
piousness and negating the Islamic viewpoint about
hiding the women sexual and reproductive matters
with male physicians and male family members.
Conclusion: The major socio-cultural and religious
stressors among nurses were erroneous perceptions
about nurses, stigmatizations about nursing profession
and misinterpreted religious viewpoints about nurses.
Forming a strong normative network for portraying the
positive image of nurses and provision of awareness
about professional nursing duties can mitigate the
stress level among targeted population.
Keywords: Socio-cultural, religious, stressors, nurses,
public, hospitals.
