Suicide And Substance Abuse Among Nurses

Essentially, the term abuse is an issue facing the nursing profession today. Many unreported cases of encountered verbal and physical abuse have been found to be ample in acute and complex care settings. These cases are amongst professional individuals (nurse-nurse and nurse-physician abuse) and also among the patient abusing the nurses. Effectively, abuse is not only a Canadian issue. It has been reported internationally as well. Thus, many nurses today are lobbying for the decrease of abuse within health care settings in order to ameliorate the working conditions. Nursing abuse may lead to other issues which will be discussed in this study. This paper will address the nurse-nurse, nurse-physician and nurse-patient abuse. In addition,

I have witnessed a “burned out” nurse simply say to a client who is refusing a medication due to a side effect the client does not care for, ‘okay, I will just put refused and tell the doctor.’ This client needs educated about his/her choice. Most of the time, the client does not realize how refusing the medication can have a negative effect on his/her body overtime.

At the psychological level, stressful and poor working conditions can cause continuing feelings of humiliation, insecurity and worthlessness. Not having a secure understanding of the future can cause large amounts of anxiety and futility that roots high levels of fatigue from day-to-day life, therefore making everyday coping difficult. Individuals who experience high levels of prolonged stress often attempt to relieve these pressures by adopting unhealthy coping behaviours; for example, the excessive use of alcohol, smoking, and

Workload was described to be heavy, stressful, increase in intensity and overtime hours. As a result 25.8% consider resigning, 20.2% consider retiring and 25.6% consider leaving profession. Another problem that was observed at individual level was poor commitment to care. One of the factors that often limited nurses to provide therapeutic care was the change in nurse to patient ratio. As nurses assignments increase with the increase in the number of patients (i.e. 1 nurse to 6-8 patients) the quality of care provided decreases. Nurses’ ability to maintain safe environment became challenging. As part of caring, nurses also showed decreased amount of time spent with their patient. This eventually led to nurses being less satisfied with their current job. Self – efficacy was often low. Nurses felt that they did not have enough knowledge and skills required for professional practice (Newhouse, Hoffman, & Hairston, 2007). This often led into stressful transition and the ability to care for a patient even harder. New graduate nurses often had difficulty maintaining leadership role. They often felt that they did not have the ability to self advocate and raise their voice to be heard by others. They often feared that they would be over heard and that no one would listen to them (Mooney, 2007).

As in the emergency department, nurses were 3.5 times as likely to use marijuana and cocaine (Young, 2008). Nurses are using substances as a coping mechanism to their stressful work environment. Excessive workload due to the nursing shortage, shift rotations, working longer hours and floating to different units leads nurses to high stress levels (Epstein et al., 2010). In addition to alcohol and substances nurses can access in the streets, nurses can also abuse substances at work through their patients medications.

According to the Nurses Practice Act (2015) set by IDFPR, unethical or unprofessional conduct includes actions or practices that causes harm, fraud, disregard for health, welfare or safety of the patient, sexual conduct, substance abuse, inability to practice nursing, behavior that crosses professional boundaries, and failure to confirm to standards of nursing practice. Examples of these actions would be medication errors, falsely documenting patient records, claiming unworked hours on payroll, or being verbally abusive to patients. The Board of Nursing is responsible to investigate the complaints. The National

Hayward, Bungay, Wolff, and Macdonald (2016) performed qualitative interviews on twelve registered nurses averaging sixteen years of experience that represented diverse areas of acute care, to investigate the factors that contribute to turnover. Three themes that influenced the nurses’ decision to leave nursing were challenging workplace environments, limited leadership support, and personal health issues. (Hayward et al.) Furthermore, Hayward et al.’s theme of challenging workplace environments detailed the nurses’ insight on harassment, negative behaviors, and bullying that resulted in nurses’ impaired job performance. Wilson, Diedrich, Phelps, and Choi (2011) investigated the quantitative prevalence of incivility related to the intent to leave nursing by obtaining the results of surveys replicated from the American Academy of

Why it is important: According to Texas Nurse Association, “The Texas Peer Assistance Program for Nurses is a non-punitive, confidential, and voluntary alternative for RNs and LVNs with concerns related to substance use and mental health. TPAPN encourages nurses to seek help with psychiatric or substance use disorders. By recognizing and managing nurses with psychiatric and substance use disorders in the workplace, TPAPN advances patient safety. Guided by an Advisory Committee comprised of representatives from a number of important Texas nursing organizations and other stakeholders, TPAPN offers a minimum 1-to-5 year monitoring program (5-year for APN’s) that is voluntary and abstinence-based” (TNA, n.d.).

Workplace violence commonly occurs between nurses, between nurses and patient, between nurses and families, or even between nurses and physician. Violence from relatives and friends of patients may occur as a result of frustration with a perceived lack of care or communication (Roche et.al. 2010). According to Woefle and McCaffrey there two consequences of violence (physical and psychological) for nurses and organization. Physical by the mean nurses can possibly experience weight loss, cardiac palpitation, stress, hypertension and irritable bowel syndrome. Psychological by the means of being mentally drain of nurses that can cause danger in giving a quality care.

Whistleblowing in nursing typically involves reporting of poor and unsafe practices that is reported to both internal and external organizations (Jackson, et al., 2010). Whistleblowing in nursing has a high impact in the workplace. Nurses that whistle blow can face severe emotional and financial repercussion that can lead to victimization and abuse (Wilkes, Peters, Weaver, & Jackson, 2011). Whistleblowing in nursing involves a nurse to deal with ethical dilemmas. Nurses must weigh their decision carefully about whistleblowing when witnessing any wrongdoing by the organization. Nursing ethical dilemmas, not an easy issue to deal with as there is confidentially clauses, written policies that are expressed and agreed upon by employee and employer

The city of Plano, Texas, recently earned a spot at the top of Forbes‘s list of “safest places” to live in the United States. Its early efforts at chasing the top prize, however, were part of a cocktail of ignorance and poor judgment that had deadly consequences for Plano’s teenagers. Plano only earned its long-sought distinction after overcoming the fallout from highly publicized episodes of teen drug overdose and suicide in the 1980s and 90s. During the 1990s, scientists at the National Institute of Health detected a nationwide rise in heroin use (Biederman). The spike was seen not only in large, urban environments, where it was perhaps not unprecedented, but also in small towns and more affluent suburbs. Plano, an affluent, newer suburb twenty miles north of Dallas, was not immune. It witnessed heroin’s devastating impact firsthand in Plano’s children, particularly those in high school. Between 1996 and 1998, heroin overdoses were the cause of 18 deaths in Plano’s young residents. But because Plano was one of the richest cities in Texas and was still recovering from the cultural backlash of cluster suicides in the 1980s, its civic and business leaders and to some extent the police tried to obfuscate the city’s heroin problem rather than confront it directly. It paid a high price for these tactics, and it took Plano decades to rebound from the fallout.

Those factors can include but not limited to financial stress, family stress, work overload, and the human brain capacity. These factors can have an impact on the workplace environment and lead to risks such as: fatal accidents, tardiness, poor decision making, theft, loss of efficiency, engaging in trouble with co-workers or managers, and a higher turnover rate (Drugs and Alcohol in the Workplace, 2015). These risks can become very dangerous and cost effective for employers. The reason being is that not only will the employers have to worry about the health concerns of the employee, but also current employees as well who can be at risk to those who abuse. Employers must find ways to help prevent this to affect their work environment and how impact the money flow of the

Not telling the patients what kind of medications they are taking and practically forcing them to take them is another way for the Big Nurse to maintain her power. This refusal to disclose information about their medications strips the patients of the right to know what kind of treatment they are receiving for their illnesses; it also keeps the men from being able to make active choices about whether they want to take certain medications because they are not informed about the benefits or side effects. In Nurse Ratched’s ward, either the patient takes the medication that is given without asking questions, or he does

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For some teens, striving for perfection has led to harming their own health and wellbeing such as living with depression and suicide. Teenagers today are relying on what they see in ads, T.V., magazines and on the internet for their input on appearances, the way they think not only comes from media sources, but from family and friends.