Level of Fatigue Among Staff Nurses in Selected Hospitals of Cauayan City, Isabela

Abstract

This study determined the level of fatigue among staff nurses in selected private hospitals in Cauayan City, Isabela, and used the findings as the basis for a proposed fatigue management program. A descriptive research design was employed. The participants were 178 staff nurses drawn from a population of 329 through stratified random sampling across three hospitals. Data were collected using a two-part questionnaire that included the 40-item Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT-F) Scale. Frequency and percentage distributions and FACIT-F summation scores described the respondents and their fatigue levels, while the Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis H test, and Dunn pairwise comparisons examined differences across profile variables. Most respondents were 21-30 years old, female, single, college graduates, and had one to three years of nursing experience. Moderate fatigue was reported by 139 nurses (78.1%), whereas 34 (19.1%) experienced mild fatigue, three (1.7%) experienced severe fatigue, and two (1.1%) reported no or minimal fatigue. Significant differences were found according to age, civil status, and hospital affiliation, while sex, educational attainment, years of experience, work shift, weekly working hours, and unit assignment showed no significant differences. The findings indicate that fatigue is both a workforce-wide concern and a condition shaped by personal and institutional contexts. A proposed management program centered on early-career mentorship, institutional operational review, workplace social support, and organization-wide fatigue countermeasures was developed to strengthen nurse well-being and patient-care safety.