Purpose: The present study aimed to evaluate
mental health and coping strategies among nursing
staff in two public hospitals of Greece.
Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study
was conducted on 318 nurses working in two public
hospitals in Attica, Greece from February 2017 to
May 2017. Data were collected using the Patient
Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2), the Generalized
Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire (GAD-2) and the
Greek version of the Ways of Coping
Questionnaire. The data were presented as mean
and standard deviation and analyzed through
student tâ“test, chi-square, and descript_ive
statistics using SPSS Version 21.0. The significance
level was accepted as P values <0.05. Results: Data analysis revealed that 44% of nurses
were suffering from depression and 40.3% from
anxiety, with the type of hospital (p≤ 0.001) and
marital status (p = 0.031) affecting stress levels.
Conclusions: Working in mental health hospital
and married nurses were the main risk factors for
manifestation of anxiety/depression symptoms
among nursing staff. Individual nurse
characteristics, such as working experience as well
as working environment (general and mental health
hospital) were found to be associated with the
nurses’ coping strategies in their attempt to deal
with their work.