Original Research Article
Year: 2020 | Month: July-September | Volume: 5 | Issue: 3 | Pages: 25-29
Occupational Stress among Nurses
Sharadchandra Vinayak Dighe
Asst. Professor, College of Nursing, Pravara Institute of Medical Sciences (DU), Loni, Maharashtra
ABSTRACT
Nursing is considered as highly stressful profession. Occupational stress is regarded as a major occupational health problem for healthcare professionals especially nurses. Evidence shows that occupational stress decreases the quality of nursing care and increases the chances of making errors. This could have an adverse impact on patient care. Also research has shown that prolonged stress not only predisposes nurses to physical disorders of the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular system, but also increase the vulnerability to psychiatric illnesses such as depressive and anxiety disorders. Therefore, it can lead to poorer health in the nurses themselves. Apart from physical and psychological consequences occupational stress has been reported to affect productivity, job satisfaction and job performance of nurses. Studies also report that occupational stress results in considerable costs to organizations in terms of absenteeism, attrition rate, injury claims, infection rates, errors in treating patient, reduced productivity, and health care resources.
Published research writings demonstrated numerous causes for occupational stress among nurses. These include shift duties, interpersonal conflicts with peers, seniors, patients, or doctors, performing tasks not related to nursing, dealing with life-threatening emergencies, unhealthy work environment, work overload, death of patient and so on.
It is a well-known fact that management of problem becomes easy if it`s route cause is identified. Therefore this review was undertaken to determine the most common occupational stressors and stress reduction strategies for nurses. Review found some significant sources of occupational stress such as excessive workload, dealing with death and dying, conflicts with other health team members, and insufficient resources. Stress reduction strategies include leading healthy life to practicing relaxation techniques.
Keywords: Occupational stress, Nurse, Nursing