The Stress of Caring

To successfully implement change, employees need to understand how this will benefit them and impact their daily work. One of the things is that something might look good on paper can have drawbacks that are not realized by the planners, but can be easily identified by the employees who must implement the change. Therefore as a manager you need to bring the idea to the employees and get their feedback and continue to empower the employees to make the change that will work for them. Since change doesn’t happen overnight a manager needs to continually in monitoring the process and to assist the

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 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.

This plan will take 10 weeks to accomplish. Week 1, flyers will be made and distributed, so that all staff is aware of the changes being implemented and can plan to make this change. It will also give staff an opportunity to voice any concerns related to the changes and fill out the initial survey which is in Appendix B. This week will also be used to gather any resource materials needed to help with implementation of skills. Week 2 will be used for coordinating instruction and teaching with unit managers. Weeks 3 & 4 will be used to review the process of shift change report and how communication occurs between nurses, from nurse to patient and from nurse to physician. Staff interdisciplinary interactions will also be reviewed to find weaknesses in communication and teamwork. Week 5 will be used to review incident reports, to determine the gaps and what the staff needs to know to make incident reporting more effective and efficient. Week 6 will be used to arrange teaching times. This week will also be used to find teaching facilitators to teach the rest of the

Shift changeovers, transfer, overlapping and receipt shall be documented and signed, with reference to names of security personnel starting shift, changing over and providing shift’s information, as well as receiving relevant equipment.

Nursing school requires an immense amount of dedication and motivation. In order to function at an optimal level, it is necessary to identify problem areas then be able to intervene and change them in a positive manner. In seminar, I used the Lifestyle and Health Habits Self Assessment and determined that I suffer from a high level of stress. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the methods and interventions I used to improve this problem, as well as explore the nursing process and how to apply it to a situation.

Thus the support of the Vice President of Nursing is necessary for this project. As inconsistencies exist between managers, a third strategy to improve the scheduling gap is to form a Nurse Staffing Advisory Council. This Council membership will include frontline nurses and nurse managers. The Vice President of Nursing will head the team. Dent (2015), mentions that the Chief Nursing Office is a valuable asset to this council. The responsibilities of the Council are to assure a fatigue management policy is in place, consider nurse-sensitive outcomes in evaluating staff adequacy, and assure the self-scheduling policy is in place and rules are being followed. Also, this team will be responsible for writing a staffing plan which will include minimum staffing requirements for the nursing units along with a volume surge management

the workload of their employees or to make sure that a replacement for a nurse comes in. If this can be done, then the validity of patient care would be resolved and the accusations of nurses just might stop.

Enhance communication between shifts. Both written (in 24 hours report) and verbal (hand off report).

With the increasing injuries and errors in healthcare facilities, strategies must be implemented to combat this the battle of nursing burnout. Many issues in healthcare are a result of overwhelmed employees as a result of increased caseloads and staffing shortages. Many nurses are not able to maintain a healthy work life balance and it’s necessary to resolve these issues if nurses are to provide quality care to the patients. Staffing and schedules must be catered to meet the needs of the unit and at the same time not leave the nurses exhausted and stressed. Vacations could be honored with better use of the float RN’s by using temporary staffing for chronic long term vacancies. Meetings should occur during the shift and not before or after. Incentives need to be given to those employees that engage in healthy activities such as healthy eating and exercise. Employee recognition should be increased and employees need to feel appreciated with things such as athletic event tickets, lunch vouchers, gift cards, etc. Many things can be done that are not costly to the

The case loads from these RNs had to be covered by the remaining staff. Staff started working even longer hours (twelve to sixteen hours) on several days weekly. Staff felt like they did not have the opportunity to provide care that was quality and meaningful. They were not able to use the knowledge and skills they acquired to make an impact on another’s health status as they thought would be. The job became more of completing assigned tasks rather than using nursing knowledge and judgment. According to Chan (2009) “When nurses perceive a lack of autonomy in their job, this is a leading cause of job dissatisfaction for nurses and a major factor when deciding to leave the job” (p. 21).

“It is common for the hospital to post schedules with holes in them, meaning that not all the shifts are covered and they are short on nurses from the start. The crisis is predictable and inevitable. These crises are not foreseen or emergency situations, but rather ones that are planned, systemic and programmed for failure. They are not due to “call –ins” that the hospitals like to cite. Even so, there is absolutely no leeway for the event when a nurse does all in sick” (Twarog, 2011, p. 10).

The nursing field is an occupation that is naturally subject to a high degree of stress because professionals in this field deal with grief, suffering, and death cases. The vulnerability to stress in the nursing occupation is also fueled by the fact that several nursing tasks tend to be mundane and unrewarding. In normal standards, nursing tasks range from being distasteful to degrading, disgusting, and frightening. Generally, many visits by patients to health care services are usually brought by stress-related illnesses to an extent that 90 percent of these visits are associated to stress. Therefore, stress is part of nearly every person's existence since it's linked to the development of mental disorders, enhanced stress-related diseases, and minimized immunologic function.

There are many challenges that we face and have to handle every single day. And, as women, we frequently have to balance the demands of work, family, children, parents, finances, and health—to name just a few. These demands are frequently referred to as “stressors” and achieving a balance is “stressful.” But multiple demands on our time and energy are a part of everyone’s life. Stress is not how many demands you have in your life, but rather how you and your body respond to these demands. For some, racing to meet a tight deadline or complete a long “ToDo” list can be positive and energizing. It’s important to learn what stress is, at what point it becomes harmful, and options for how you can respond to it. Finding the right balance is

Stress is a killer. There is doubt that stress can cause health problems. Daily stressors lead into major health problems. Therefore if you can manage your daily stress you can promote a healthier life. The American Medial Association defines stress, as being any disruptions of a person’s mental and physical well being. (4.) My position is that if you balance the stress in your life you can live healthier and prevent certain sicknesses.