The Effects Of Drug Stress And Drug Abuse In Nursing

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.

Nurses work long hours and deal with high levels of stress during the workday which leads to nurse burnout. Nurse burnout is classified as physical and mental fatigue, which strongly affects the nurses emotions and motivation. (“Nursing Burnout”). Burnout is caused by various factors within the workplace, such as dealing with a hectic, fast-paced environment, caring for too many patients at one time, and working odd hours. When nurses deal with multiple patients per shift, high levels of responsibility, and their own personal problems, they can become exhausted and overwhelmed. Stress due to burnout can also affect the nurse’s mood in a negative way, causing the nurse to become impatient or irritable, which can oftentimes results in verbal or emotional abuse towards the

Work related stress has an impact on the health and wellbeing of nurse’s. It is a response to work demands, and pressure that may not match the employee’s knowledge, skills or ability and challenge their ability to cope (World Health Organisation (WHO), 2017). Stress within the workforce is regarded

As Heise states, substance abuse among nurses a growing problem that is often overlooked by society. Addiction has been a problem in the nursing profession for over one hundred years (as cited in Monroe & Kenaga, 2010). According to the American nurses association, it is speculated that 6%-8% of nurses have a drug or alcohol related problem (as cited in Trinkoff & Storr, 1998). Substance abuse not only affects the individual abuser, but also can negatively impact those around them, most significantly their patients. Chemical dependence if often viewed as a lack of will power, but through education and research, this issue should be looked at as an actual disease. The education of nursing students is the first step in helping those with a

Significance: Because nursing is the largest health care profession and nurses provide most of the patient care, and as an acute nurse, I can relate to how unsafe nurse staffing/low nurse-to-patient ratios can have negative impact on patient satisfaction and outcome, can lead to medical and/or medication errors and nurse burnout. It can also bring about anxiety and frustration, which can also clouds the nurses’ critical thinking. Most patients might not know the work load on a particular nurse and can assume that her nurse is just not efficient. Doctors also can become very impatient with their nurses because orders are not being followed through that can delay treatments to their patients. There is also delays in attending to call lights resulting in very unhappy patients who needed help.

In the ever changing world of healthcare, healthcare organizations in order to be the most efficient in their delivery of healthcare, streamline their organizational structure to stay competitive, while providing the best patient care possible. This process can place increasingly undue stress onto its staff resulting in nurses having to do more with less available resources which ultimately increases their workload, has them working longer hours due to staff shortage, which contributes to an increase in the nurse burnout rates. This eventually filters down to the patient’s level of care and means less time spent on each

Nurse staffing have an effect on a variety of areas within nursing. Quality of care is usually affected. Hospitals with low staffing tend to have higher incidence of poor patient outcomes. Martin, (2015) wrote an article on how insufficient nursing staff increases workload and job dissatisfaction, which in effect decreases total patient care over all. When nurse staffing is inadequate, the ability to practice ethically becomes questionable. Time worked, overtime, and total hours per week have significant effect on errors. When nurses works long hours, the more likely errors will be made. He also argued that inadequate staffing not only affects their patients but also their loved ones, future and current nursing staff, and the hospitals in which they are employed. An unrealistic workload may result in chronic fatigue, poor sleep patterns, and absenteeism thus affecting the patients they take care of.

Nurses make up the largest clinical group in a hospital setting making them prone to cost containment by reducing their numbers. Appropriate staffing optimizes care and there is a need to create dynamics that provide proper staffing solutions. This way the health care sector will adapt to the evolving nature and need for populations that are constantly rising and in need of care. This is essential in preventing harm, providing appropriate care as needed, and saving lives. Legislations such as The Registered Nurse Staffing Act have been enacted to make sure that hospitals have adequate numbers of licensed registered nurses that provide effective medical care required by patients. Nurses have a responsibility in maintain, defining, and implementing standards of their professional practice (American Nurse Association, 2012). They should embrace mechanisms that provide adequate and flexible staffing to protect themselves and their patients from inappropriate delegation of tasks and

Working with the available staff increases the nurses’ workload and the risk for patients’ negative outcomes. Heavy nursing workload adversely affects patient safety and negatively affects nursing job satisfaction (Carayon & Gurses, 2008, p. 1). Furthermore, a study on the hospital nurse shortage and the California legislation about minimum hospital patient-to-nurse ratios concluded that the nurse staffing levels affect patients’ outcomes detrimentally; for each additional patient per nurse was associated with a 7% increase in the likelihood of dying within 30 days of admission and a 7% increase in the odds of failure-to-rescue. In addition, this study concluded that 23% of the nurses were associated with burnout and a 15% increase in job dissatisfaction (Aiken, Clarke, Sloane, Sochalski, & Silber, 2002, p.

Alchol and drug addictions can affect anyone, not just your regular every day people but the people you put the most trust in when you are sick, yes Nurses can also suffer from substance abuse problems. Americans don’t often recognize addiciton as being a serious desease amongst many in the United States. Many nurses tend to stay to themselves when it comes to working with a nurse that suffers from an addiction. There are many understandable reasons why many nurses would turn to substance abuse. Some reasons may be that it came from their family histories that could include emotional impairment, alcoholism, drug use, and/or emotional abuse that result in low self-esteem, overachievement, and overwork. ()

A health system consists of many parts, people, and duties, all of which are to help improve the health of the community as a whole. Nurses are just a small part of the system, but at the same time they also play a big role in it. Nurses and the health care system both share a simple, common goal of improving the health of the population. In order for a health system to work there has to be people who are willing to fulfill the roles, which is exactly what nurses are helping to do. A health system describes what needs to be done in order to achieve better health. Nurses put themselves at risk everyday facing illnesses and diseases, but that does not stop them from doing their job. They are so determined to cure as many people as they possibly

A nurse’s typical day isn’t without stress; it is usually a lot of complex planning, critical thinking, time management, an abundance of communications with all departments of the hospital, and documenting events that have happened throughout the day on their entire patient assignment. “Nurses who are mandated following the completion of their regular shift are often ill-equipped to continue working. They have not planned for that situation with: proper advanced rest, arrangements for

There are numerous elements that contribute to stress in the healthcare setting. Nurses’ days are full of physical, mental and emotional demands. There are societal demands and workplace demands created by the shortage. These stressors can become increasingly overwhelming and if there is no stress relief, job performance can and will be hindered. When fatigue and stress combine there is potential for “performance decrements”. This can include diminished capacity to manage a specific level of workload resulting in errors in the delivery of nursing care. This can produce damaging effects on the safety and advantageous outcomes for both the nurses and patients. (Reese, 2011). Therefore, finding a balance between lowering stress levels of

Nurses are especially vulnerable to several related effects of stress, such as burnout, job dissatisfaction, increased interpersonal problems, increased health complaints, disturbances in sleep patterns, as well as clinical depression and anxiety (Villani, Grassi, Cognetta, Toniolo, Cipresso, & Riva, 2013). The potential for stress can be reduced by resolving difficulties in the workplace promptly, addressing staff shortages, turnover and absenteeism, and developing clear objectives and plans (McIntosh, & Sheppy, 2013). Learning to manage and reduce stress by developing insight and coping strategies will help to maintain and promote nursing integrity and consistent patient care (McIntosh, & Sheppy, 2013).