The Need For Nurse Support Programs

On reading this article and identifying the study, there was a clear insight on how death and dying, and even improved health, impacted those nurses (Conte, 2014). Nurses, who worked closely with their patients, through the perils and suffering, culminating of death and losses, had grief not readily explored to enable that comfort zone (Conte, 2014).

Death is a part of life and eventually everyone on this earth will experience it. Nurses play an important role in death. Mourning the death of a loved one is something that almost everyone will experience in this lifetime because it is a natural response to death. Bereavement, grief and mourning are all effected by one’s culture, religion, the relationship with the deceased, personality, and how the person died.

It is documented that nurses are now diagnosed with PTSD due to the traumatic experiences they deal with over and over on a regular basis. These nurses encounter patients who are extremely depressed, have a hard time are just making it through the day, or show signs of substance abuse, as well as anxiety disorders. The jobs they perform on a regular basis are emotionally

Dying is a process that involves the entire family; that is to say, the family that is defined by the person. The nurse must be aware that this is not only an individual process but a family process. This involves recognizing family dynamics and communication patterns and facilitating healthy interactions.

I interviewed Tracy, who is a registered nurse with Shands Homecare, before working there she worked at North Florida Hospital. She has been a nurse for about ten years. Along with the above questions I asked Tracy a few of my own, one of the questions I asked was if there was a significant experience dealing with death in her profession that impacted her more than others, and there was. She mentioned that she went to a patient's home one day, who had been her patient for quite some time, and she found them deceased. She said that part if that experience that really impacted her was that at the time she found the patient, the patient's son was getting home from school. Tracy said that is was a very tragic experience for her. I also asked Tracy

When my grandmother was dying of cancer in hospice, I had no intentions of becoming a nurse. Consistently, I repositioned her because she was in pain. Dutifully, I opened her windows because she loved the sunlight. Respectfully, I rubbed lotion on her skin because it made her comfortable. Devotedly, I prayed with her because her faith was strong, and she was ready to be reunited with my grandfather. Wistfully, I held her hand as she took her last breath, and told her it was okay to go. Afterwards, when the hospice nurses had told me that I would make a great nurse and I should consider nursing as a career, I politely said “No, thank you, nursing is not for me.”

Individuals enter nursing with a wide array of experiences in how they grieve the loss of someone or something. These experiences follow them into their career and express themselves in the way they grieve for the loss of a patient. Evidence shows that this has historically been inadequate and unhealthy. To prevent the negative impact that ineffective grieving has upon the individual the approach to the grieving process must change. In doing so nurses will become more emotionally and physically stable while going through these difficult times, ultimately helping the healthcare institution to thrive.

Occasionally, the best care a nurse can provide is providing their patient the ability to have a good death. In a survey of acute care nurses conducted by Becker, Wright, & Schmitt (2016) it was found that dying well was

A study performed in 2012 found that in hospitals across Pennsylvania that just over 4,500 patients that died within 30 days of hospitalization, and of those 4,500 deaths. It is believed that a nurse-patient ratio of 4:1 could have saved approximately 1,000 lives (Shekelle, 2013, p.3-4). In a 2013 survey, collected by the Daisy Foundation and the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, an overwhelming number of registered

The current shortage is a problem of both supply and demand (American Hospital Association, 2006). As the population ages, there is increasing demand for nursing care both in hospitals and nursing homes (Hecker, 2001). At the same time, fewer individuals are choosing nursing as a career, the most experienced nurses are quickly approaching retirement age, and others have been leaving the profession before they reach retirement age citing poor working conditions as their reason for doing so (Buerhaus et al. 2006; Gordon, 2005; Hecker, 2001; Pinkham, 2003; van Betten, 2005). These trends have led many to speculate about the causes and solutions to the current shortage of registered nurses. In what follows, we show how attending to the emotional dimensions of nurses’ work

There is an increasing amount of research centring on health care student experiences of facing the death of a patient, however, substantial gaps have been identified with regards to exploring healthcare professions experiences of death as a group. It has been acknowledged that most of the research on this topic focuses on a singular profession, nevertheless, with a significant increase in the emphasis of the importance of interdisciplinary working, particularly within the healthcare sector, it has been established that looking at the experiences of health care professions synergistically would be hugely beneficial in establishing key themes throughout the different professions.

In relation to the purpose of this study, the driving force behind the research are three questions. What are nurses experience following patient’s death? What are their actions and coping strategies following patient death? Would better learning opportunities and supportive practice environments be provided once there is an understanding of nurses’ grief and coping process, if yes, was it beneficial. The researchers proceeded with a broad question which allowed the focus to be sharpened and delineated later in the

Many nurses are regularly confronted with the hopelessness and exhaustion of patients and their families making it difficult for them to find balance between the preservation of life and the enablement of a dignified death. Nurses must acknowledge their own feelings of sorrow, fear, dismay and helplessness and recognize the impact of these emotions in clinical decision making. These distressing pressures may cause a nurse to contemplate intentionally assist in ending a patient's life as a humane and compassionate answer, however; the conventional goals and standards of the nursing profession mitigate against it.

Working in the nursing field presents itself a likely opportunity that you will have patients that die due to their sickness and can no longer go on. It’s something you can’t really prepare for unless it happens to you. As the odds are likely that a nurse will experience this event, taking time after one of your patients have died is essential for your mental health as this event is very stressful and sad.

In this article Maloney covers stress debriefing for nurses involved in traumatic incidents in throughout the workplace, specifically paying close attention to critical incidents and pediatric nurses. Traumatic events are common in the nursing workplace and if not properly tended to, can result in physical and emotional distress. Although quantitative research cannot determine the efficacy of critical incient stress debriefing, the author used a great example of a study that had extremely positive results that cut down the turnover in one hospital by half. Maloney also used studies that supported that critical incident stress debriefing was found useful over 98% of the time, and helped nurses find meaning over 97% of the time. Stress in these work environments can cause many symptoms that would effect a person’s well being not only physically but also emotionally, this article offers a great tool that can be used to reduce stress levels, and shows that hospitals are also contributing to