The Concept Analysis of Stress in the Nursing Field

Nurses play many roles in today’s society; they have to balance family, life, and their job. Nursing is a very demanding profession; you are caring for the sick with limited resources causing nurses to create unrealistic expectations (Bush, 2009). Nurses create a tireless arrangement and emotional connections with patients, shouldering a huge supporting role. Supporting this role causes nurses to feel emotional exhaustion and the weight of care for patients can become overwhelming. Signs of emotional exhaustion can cause nurse to become hostile, isolated, start crying for no reason, and getting upset (Bush, 2009).

Nurses are supporting and caring (American Heritage, 2013). Nurses aim to consistently meet patient’s expectations which can lead to stress. Stress can be positive

Society defines stress as anything which forces us to change. Through technical terms stress is defined as “a negative emotional state occurring in response to events that are perceived as taking or exceeding a person’s resources or ability to cope.” To explaining stress researchers came up with the “Cognitive appraisal model”, this system works to tell us whether we believe we have enough resources to deal with the situation without becoming stressed. For instance as a now college student those who have had previous experience taking finales in high school can have less stress than those who have not taken it. This is because they have previous experience with taking the tests and learning how to study while those who have never taken one can become extremely stressed over the unknown of the test. Stress is one of the sub branches that is attached to the world of health psychology. Health psychology is a quickly growing branch that deals with the way the mind and body work together. Psychologists that work in the health field came up with the biopsychosocial model. This model explains the complex interaction with biological, psychological, and social factors.

The profession of nursing requires a capacity and joy for caring and healing others both mentally and physically. Nurses spend their careers caring for patients and their families often in the worst and most frightening periods of their lives. Nursing responsibilities can be lengthy, stressful and physically and emotionally demanding. The demands of the nursing profession coupled with the nursing shortage and longer work hours put even more stress on nurses. Despite these extreme demands, many nurses do not fully appreciate the importance self-care. Yet without proper care for themselves, nurses are not able to provide the best care for their patients.

The nursing profession can be a physically and emotionally challenging job on a daily basis for nurses. It can have an impact on nurse’s mental health, through workplace factors that contribute to stress. Stress is a response that affects people differently and can be a physical, social, economic, or any other factor that requires a specific response to a challenging situation (Harris, Nagy & Vardaxis, 2014, pp. 1638). Within the workplace there are many factors that can cause work related stress that can influence and impact on the mental health of a nurse, however there are also many mental health promotion strategies that can be implemented to improve and build a nurses self-resilience. For the purpose of the assignment, workplace factors that can have an impact on nurses mental health include high workload and exposure to death and dying, these topics will be discussed, as well as two evidence-based strategies of mindfulness and reflective practices or thinking, which nurses can implement to build self-resilience will also be discussed. Stress is a response to challenging situations, people can encounter it in many different parts of their life, including in the workplace.

One negative effect that stress inflicts on nursing students is that elevated levels of stress lead to serious health problems. Stress is proven to be a cause of many difficulties among humans and that extreme amounts can lead to complications later on in life or even an early death. Nursing students are placed under continuous extreme levels of stress throughout the duration of their education. Prolonged periods of stress have been proven to cause serious problems relating to the whole body not

Stress has been linked to hypertension, heart attacks, diabetes, asthma, chronic pain, allegeries, headaches, skin disorders, cancer, immune system weakness and decrease blood count (Cummings et al, 2005). It has also been linked to an increase risk of alcoholism and drug use. High levels of stress can lead to higher absenteeism, larger staff turnover and low productivity. The symptoms are evident in the quantitative data, with an

Nursing is more demanding than many other professions or occupations, as a result of the combination of sicker patients, exhausting schedules and arduous physical work (Gordon 235). It can take a significant emotional toll on many, hence the higher levels of depression and stress-related illnesses (Gordon, Buchanan, and Bretherton 190). Higher workloads not only were related to burnout, but also impacted both the nurses’ and the patients’ safety (Gordon, Buchanan, and Bretherton 191).

As nurses, we have an innate ability to care for others. Because of this, we find that we have put others before ourselves, which makes for compassionate and empathetic nursing care, but can lead to internal downfalls. There is a shift for the nurse, when providing nurturing care for patients becomes difficult. The downfalls are seen after repeated exposure to stressful work environments, work overload, lack of recognition and the repeated exposure to patients suffering, which nurses attempted to relieve. With advancements in healthcare, prolonging of life, increasing physical and emotional needs from patients and their families and the aging of American, nurses have an increase in stressors and demands.

capabilities, resulting in biopsychological charges that may make him/her of risk for disease. Effects may vary from one person to another. (Niabi; H. et. al., 2013)

There are many effects it takes to be a nurse, some good and some bad. There are many factors that can influence stress on a nurse. There are many pros, cons and effects on nurses. In the article, “The Long Term Effects On Your Body From Being a Nurse”, the pros is that nursing is a delightful blend of on intellectual and physical aspects of the nurses mind and body. The cons in this article are that every time you pull up a patient in bed, help transfer, or take care of a shaky patient, this puts yourself at risk for injury. The effects of all of this are that nursing can affect your knees, back, and feet. Nurses are known for having sore feet, the knee pain is associated with lifting, bending, and squatting. In my second article, “10 Must-Know

Many believe that stress is a simple problem, however it is often misunderstood and more complex than they believe (p. 181, Griffin & Moorhead, 2014). Stress is the physiological and psychological response to excessive and usually unpleasant stimulation as well as threatening events in the environment (p. 284, Schultz and Schultz, 2010). Stress appears in silent and subtle ways but this negative response affects millions of employees in all levels of all types of jobs (p. 284, Schultz and Schultz, 2010). If identified

Nursing Science Quarterly, 18:3, July 2005 and conversion. According to Kuhn, scientific knowledge is generated by preparadigm inquiry, ultimately leading to the endpoint of a defined paradigm, or a period of normal science. The scientific community defines the standards, beliefs, laws, and theory from which all scientists are to conduct themselves. During a

Students going to school and working at the same time can become very stressed, overworked, and may drop out. Not all students who have a job and go to school will be stressed, overworked, or will drop out. In the nursing field there are many hours where an individual may not have as much time as they thought to do work, causing stress. Many hours of work and school can make a student so stressed they may decide to change majors because of such workloads. “If the level of role strain is not addressed and attempts are not made to reduce it, stress levels and feelings of incompetence increase, and the faculty member experiences difficulty in meeting the obligations of the job” (Cranford, 2013, p. 103). This is a reason, for some nurses not

This author believes Hayes & Weathington (2007) given a great definition of stress which states “stress is any circumstance that places special physical or psychological anxiety on a person such that requires an infrequent or extraordinary response occurs.” Based on this definition it can be said stress from a job will overlap into one’s private life which only will complicate issues more. The effect of stress can leave individual with the mindset that they are trapped in this situation and will not be able to acclimate to the situation.