School and nursing service managers' ability to hold their own amidst daily demands.

Improving quality of life itself subsumes the experience, maintenance, and continuous enhancement of physical and psychological health. It is therefore important for the physical and psychological health of school and nursing service managers that they are able to hold their own successfully, both personally and professionally. Bearing this in mind, the question of the extent to which school and nursing service managers succeed in holding their own (coping) successfully remains. Does their profession (field of work) influence school and nursing service managers' personal beliefs, perceptions of their coping ability amidst daily demands and their use of different types of coping strategies. The purpose of this research project was to address these issues. An empirical investigation was undertaken with reference to a theoretical framework to assess school and nursing service managers' personal beliefs, perceptions of their coping ability amidst daily demands and the coping strategies they use. Consecutive factor analytical procedures, item analyses, Hotelling T2-tests and Student t-tests were conducted on the data. The results of the analyses indicated, inter alia, that nursing service managers and, especially school managers, do not quite perceive themselves capable enough to cope with interpersonal demands. School managers find it significantly more difficult than nursing service managers to cope with demands arising from professional and personal relationships.