Discussion
This study investigated the relationship between fatigue and life satisfaction, and the moderating effect of coping styles in that relationship. The results showed that mental fatigue was negatively associated with life satisfaction among nurses, and active coping styles significantly moderated the relationship between mental fatigue and life satisfaction. Mental fatigue had a less negative impact on life satisfaction when nurses adopted a more active coping style.
This study showed that the average life satisfaction level score of nurses surveyed was 22.74 ± 6.11, which was slightly higher than the nurses’ life satisfaction level of previous studies of 21.03 ± 6.39 [
55] and 19.71 ± 5.41 [
5]. However, the life satisfaction level of nurses was still lower than that of the general population [
56]. In addition, this study suggested that the physical fatigue level of nurses was 3.95 ± 2.52, and the mental fatigue level was 3.04 ± 0.97. In contrast, another study of Chinese nurses showed that the mean score for physical fatigue was 4.89 ± 1.43, and the score for mental fatigue was 2.05 ± 1.18 [
57]. Our study found that nurses generally had lower levels of life satisfaction and higher levels of mental fatigue.
Mental fatigue was negatively correlated with nurses’ life satisfaction, as shown in this study. Other literature (e.g., [
58,
59]) has also documented the significant relationship between fatigue and life satisfaction. Krenzien et al. (2017) found the same relationships between fatigue and life satisfaction among elderly liver transplant recipients [
59]. Furthermore, a German study indicated that fatigue might affect life satisfaction among community people in a negative way [
58]. This study complemented the investigation of the relationship between fatigue and life satisfaction in the nurse population. However, no correlation was found between physical fatigue and nurses’ life satisfaction in this study. Life satisfaction involved a favorable attitude towards one’s life—rather than an assessment of current feelings [
45]. If nurses were exhausted from high-intensity physical activity, they might struggle to run, lift, or play, but their alertness and focus would remain the same, which might not affect the individual’s positive attitude toward life.
In addition to fatigue, coping styles might also affect nurses’ life satisfaction. In this study, active coping was positively correlated with life satisfaction, and passive coping was negatively correlated with life satisfaction. Specifically, individuals developing more active and less passive coping were more likely to have higher levels of life satisfaction. The positive relationship between life satisfaction with active coping style (i.e., problem-solving, seeking social support, and positively rationalized explanation) and negative relationship with passive coping (enduring, escape, emotional venting, and wishful thinking/denial) were reported previously [
60]. Scientific literature suggested that active coping was associated with positive attitudes [
23]. Active coping had protective effects on life satisfaction, possibly because active coping styles enabled individuals to consider difficult events from more adaptive and positive perspectives [
23].
What’s more, active coping styles could mitigate the detrimental effect of mental fatigue on life satisfaction among nurses, which provided support for the stress-coping model [
35]. It has been previously observed that the moderating effect of avoidance-focused coping on the relationship between perceived stress and subjective well-being [
37]. Riley et al. (2020) reported that active coping style had a moderating effect on the relationship between poly-victimization and life satisfaction [
38]. However, for the first time, the association between coping styles, fatigue, and life satisfaction in nurse population was analyzed in this study. Nurses with higher active coping may avoid or combat mental fatigue better in the high-pressure context of the hospital, as they could more easily recognize and manage stress caused by long-term cognitive activity or nurse-patient conflicts, and relax themselves timely [
61]. In addition, nurses with higher active coping may suppress the negative experiences, anxiety, and psychological distress that emanate due to mental fatigue, thus alleviating the adverse impact of mental fatigue on their life satisfaction [
29,
36].
The “Healthy China 2030” plan proposed that screening and prevention of mental health problems in certain professional groups should be prioritized. Therefore, improving mental well-being among nurses should be a top concern for healthcare policymakers. Nurses’ mental fatigue may be difficult to effectively alleviate due to the unavoidable long-term cognitive activities at work. Based on the results of our research, improving coping styles might be a good way to minimize the negative impact of mental fatigue on life satisfaction. Nurses themselves should continuously enrich and improve their skills and psychological quality in clinical practice, maintain a positive and optimistic attitude towards life, to form a positive coping style [
23]. On the other hand, nurses should be trained to learn active coping strategies such as seeking emotional support and striving for change [
49]. Hospital managers could set up programs such as mindfulness-based therapy that improve nurses’ ability to respond to negative emotions [
62]. In future research, researchers can further explore intervention measures to improve coping styles and carry out relevant empirical research.
Limitation
Several limitations of the study should be considered. First, the cross-sectional design simultaneously measured associations between fatigue, coping styles, and life satisfaction. Due to the observational nature of the cross-sectional design, any causal relationship between the factors examined and life satisfaction cannot be inferred. The possibility cannot therefore be ruled out that life satisfaction may contribute to fatigue. However, this explanation seems less likely in light of some evidence showing that some adverse psychological state may uni-directionally and negatively predict life satisfaction in longitudinal studies of non-nurse populations [
63]. Second, as the study adopted the self-report measures, recall and response biases might have occurred. Our study attempted to minimize bias by using the scales well-validated in the Chinese population, such as SWLS, FS-14, and SCSQ, and training the investigators uniformly before investigation. Third, participants in this study were drawn from tertiary hospitals with more than 500 beds, where the work environment and workload may differ from those in small clinics, so extrapolation of the findings to nurses in other types of healthcare settings is limited.
Implication
Nurses may experience mental fatigue that is difficult to alleviate in the short term due to the frequent exposure of work-related emotional stress (e.g., patients’ needs and expectations). This study suggests that positive psychological resources such as active coping styles can be considered as an intervention point to alleviate nurses’ mental fatigue, thereby safeguarding nurses’ mental health.
Hospital managers could relieve the adverse effect of nurses’ mental fatigue on life satisfaction by training them to master active coping strategies and engage in active thinking, ultimately achieving the goal of improving the quality of nursing services and maintaining the stability of the nursing team.
Future research could also incorporate some qualitative methods, such as using Online Photovoice (OPV) [
64] and collaborating with nurses from the perspective of community-based participatory research (CBPR) to explore comprehensive active coping styles suitable for nurses and how to promote nurses to adopt active coping styles.
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.