Complexity Compression: Nurses Under Fire Summary

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Recommended: Stress in the nursing field

The article Complexity Compression: Nurses Under Fire, originally published in the Nursing Forum in 2007, is an interesting article that discusses the various stressors experienced by nurses. Proper stress management is essential for nurses in order to be successful patient advocates. Additionally, the issues addressed in the article relate to nurses having meaningful, healthy careers.
This article centers specifically on nursing research with stress because they authors understand the stressors that come with the ever changing demands of a nursing career. The researches evaluate a subject they have coined “complexity compression”, meaning the experience that nurses have when their normal responsibilities are compounded with additional demands. This is understandably creates a stressful work environment. Proper stress management and having realistic expectations are essential to reducing the burn out rate for nurses. The article comments on how stressors in nursing are constantly changing as technology and policies change. This means that these problems and compounding …show more content…

These are nurses from various disciplines and specialties. They came together to discuss and identify factors and stressors that contribute to complexity compression. Researchers then assigned nurse volunteers to groups among 8 tables each representing different settings and experiences. Nurses then described their feelings and what directly caused them to feel a specific way. Following this, nurses then ranked contributing factors as group as to what was the most impactful. This is relevant to me, because I do not yet know where I want to work. This research was conducted with nurses experienced in medica/surgical, ICU, psychiatric, emergency, long-term care, public health, and home care settings. I envision myself working in a hospital as a bedside nurse. The stressors discussed are certainly applicable to my future

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