Kendyl Wulff
Nursing 1420
Davidson, Oltmans, Reeves, Rurup
April 4, 2016
Stress Management
The first stress assessment that I took was the stress assessment rating scale. The assessment consisted of questions related to how content you are and asked about both positive and negative coping mechanisms. They asked a series of questions and asked on a scale of 1-5 if you never (5), rarely (4), sometimes (3), often (2) and always (1) do something. At the end of the assessment you add up all your scores and find your results related to that number. I received a score of 33 which falls in the range of learning. It states “You are managing to a considerable extent. There is some room for improvement. You will benefit from taking a Transformation
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Show MoreStress is a common factor in all of our daily lives. Learning to manage stress can be life changing and be very useful in both our personal and work environments. Stress can be caused by many different situations, such as family problems, work problems, finances, deadlines, information overload, unhealthy eating, lack of exercise, public speaking, trust issues, friendships, and so on. Stress is defined as, “an adaptive response, mediated by individual characteristics and/or psychological processes, that is a consequence of any external action, situation, or event that places special physical and/or psychological demands upon a person” (Kreitner and Kinicki, p.551). Stress triggers are different for different people. Although we would like to avoid stress, it is impossible. We need stress in our lives in order to stay alive and help us make quick decisions in life or death situations. Stress can actually be a good thing such as eustress, stress that is good or produces a positive outcome. When a person experiences stress it causes one of two reactions, fight or flight, which allows us to make the decision to either accept the situation or run away. According to Kreitner and Kinicki , “Physiologically, this stress response is a biochemical “passing gear” involving hormonal changes that mobilize the body for extraordinary demands” ( p.550). The main point is we cannot avoid stress; stress is good for us to a certain extent. Our efforts need to be aimed at managing stress and learning to live with and embrace it.
Stress is a major concern in today’s society. Stress is linked to many different ailments as well as fatigue and many other physical symptoms. Physicians have proven that stress is very dangerous, attributing to diseases and a shorter life span. Some kind of stress management is recommended in order to help one deal with their stress so it doesn’t consume them.
Burnout in nursing is a convoluted and significant matter that must be acknowledged and addressed to preserve the quality and longevity of the nursing profession. With varying definitions of the term, it becomes important to identify and understand the factors and dynamics that have bearing on the nurse’s intrapersonal beliefs, emotional well-being, and ultimately the patient care they provide. Once these components are recognized, it is just as imperative to offer potential resolutions to meet this challenge. Aside from simple, personal actions that the nurse can take, such as exercise and rest, there are certain measures that if fulfilled by the nursing leadership staff will hold substantial weight when it comes to contending with burnout.
Nurse Burnout and Retention becomes the result for many nurses in their medical career. A brief explanation of what a burnout actually comprises of: builds up stress, decreasing of self-esteem and performance. Nurse, as we know, play a very important role in the medical field. They are not just doctors’ assistants that follow the doctor’s wherever they go; they too have very important duties and play multiple different roles that makes it clear to many that know that their job is just as difficult as any doctor’s. Some of the responsibilities of these nurses are listed in the ANA(American Nurses Association): they perform physical exams, record the patient 's health history, provide health promotion/counseling/education, administer
Hans Selye said, “It is not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.” Stress can cause it’s victims to suffer from emotional and physical anguish. If stress occurs for prolonged periods of time with little to no reprieve it can result in serious and sometimes fatal health problems. It is ironic that stress can lead to major health concerns, yet some of the most stressed people are those in the healthcare profession. According to an article from the Nursing Standard, stress is a leading cause of illness and depression among nurses (Jones-Berry, 2013). Several studies have shown that there is a direct link between stress, depression and illness and often times nurses fall victim to this link because of poor work environments and a lack of appropriate sick leave to tend to their own needs. Research has shown that stress amidst nurses is directly related to depression and illness; therefore, hospitals need to take actions necessary to decrease stress and promote well-being among their nursing staff.
In order to create a personal philosophy that is meaningful and can be carried through a person’s career; one must first start with the basis of being a nurse. According to Faye Abdellah
In today’s health care environment, work-related stress plays a major role in the performance of nursing professionals. The nursing profession is significantly affected by the effects of stress and this often determines the quality of care that patients receive. Work-related stress develops when an individual loses the ability to cope with increasing service demands, overwhelming responsibilities, and loss of control over their environment. Preceding research has proven that high stress levels result in more staff absences, staff turnover, diminished job satisfaction, and additional costs which in return only further exacerbates staff stress levels (Wright, 2014). Nursing managers can help to control how stress affects the staff and provide ways for the staff to cope effectively. Although nurses are responsible for maintaining their health, managers can significantly reduce stress by ensuring that the employees are well educated, internal support resources are available, and external employee assistance programs are provided. The quality of leadership and management support provided to the staff can significantly alleviate stress in the health care field (Wright, 2014). By decreasing the workload, reducing service demands, and implementing effective coping strategies, stress among nurses can be decreased and the quality of patient care will improve considerably.
Stress is an everyday part of our lives whether it be at work, in the car or in any public place. It is the rapid heart rate, heavy breathing, angering feeling that can happen for some like myself at the drop of a hat. I think this in itself is one of the many reasons the topic is an interesting one. Unlike the animal groups mentioned in our course, there are more random factors to a humans stress in a given day. I think with that alone the study becomes ever-changing and that much more interesting. Especially, when you factor in that some stressors do not affect everyone, something that bothers you could not bother me in the slightest. That in my opinion is why it is so interesting, it is a multifaceted subject.
One of the most serious issues in nursing, that can affect a nurses career is nursing burn- out. According to the article “Where have all the nurses gone”, current nurses that are practicing, report high rates of job dissatisfaction (which is part of burn out) and 1 of 5 nurses may quit nursing in the next 5 years (Dworkin, 2002). Burnout is associated with nurses not coming in to work, not feeling satisfied when doing their job, high turnover rates and a lack of commitment to the work (Katisfaraki, 2013). If a nurse becomes burned- out, they may not take care of their patients as well and could make mistakes with medication administration. A study performed in the United States by Dr. Jeannie Cimiottti, shows that hospitals with high burn-out rates among nurses have higher levels UTI’s, and surgical infections (World, 2012). Nursing burnout not only affects the nurse, but it also affects the patient, the nurses’ colleagues, and the nurses’ family; nursing burn out often leads to emotional exhaustion and depression, that can effect relations and communication between the nurse effected and the person they are communicating with. This paper will cover what burn-out is, who is susceptible to burn out, and treatment and prevent nursing burn out.
In the recent past, nursing has come to the forefront as a popular career amongst students across the globe. The demand for nurses has kept increasing gradually over the years. In fact, the number of registered nurses does not meet the demand of the private and public health sector. This phenomenon has resulted in a situation where the available registered nurses have to work extra hours in order to meet the patients’ needs. With this in mind, the issue of nurse fatigue has come up as a common problem in nursing. According to the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA), nurse fatigue is “a feeling of tiredness” that penetrates a persons physical, mental and emotional realms limiting their ability to function normally. Fatigue does not just involve sleepiness as has been assumed before. It involves utter exhaustion that is not easily mitigated through rest. When nurses ignore the signs of fatigue, they risk the development of chronic fatigue and other health problems that may not be easily treated. Additionally, fatigue may cause nurses to lose more time at work as they may have to be away from work for several days to treat it. The issue of nurse fatigue has permeated the nursing profession to the extent of causing errors in the work performed by nurses. Fatigue causes a decrease in a nurse’s ability to make accurate decisions for themselves and their patients. It is therefore important to find ways to curb nurse fatigue such that it is no longer a problem. Nurse fatigue is a danger to the patients, organizations and to the nurses themselves and must be mitigated adequately.
The nursing profession is one of the most physically, emotionally, and mentally taxing career fields. Working long shifts, placing other’s needs before your own, dealing with sickness and death on a regular basis, and working in a high stress environment are all precursors to developing occupational burnout in the nursing profession. Burnout refers to physical, emotional and mental exhaustion, which can lead to an emotionally detached nurse, who feels hopeless, apathetic, and unmotivated. Burnout extends beyond the affected nurse and begins to affect the care patients receive. Researchers have found that hospitals with high burnout rates have lower patient satisfaction scores (Aiken et al 2013). There are various measures that nurses can take
When I took the life stress test, the score that I got was 132, and according to the test, I have a low to moderate chance of being ill in the future. I found that some of the things that cause me stress weren’t on the test, such as having doubts/worries in your friendships, and doubts/dissatisfaction with yourself and your habits. I also find that the weight of each stress varies with each person, so it may not be the most accurate life stress test. Other than that, I’m glad that I was on the lowest end of the stress scale, and that I won’t be ill in the near future. Sometimes I find it hard to pinpoint what exactly causes me stress and unhappiness in my life, which causes me to think about whether I am stressing over nothing. When I think about it now after taking the life stress test, I realize that a lot of my stress comes from my perfectionistic habits and feeling anxious about an accumulation of things related to school, my career, and my relationships.
Nursing theories are defined as a systematic review of a phenomenon that consist of interconnected concepts. Concept analyses explore the meaning of concepts to promote understanding. They are important to the nursing field, due to the fact, they providing lucidity for our professional nursing practice. Watson (2015) stated that the purpose of a concept analysis is to determine what is known about a concept to assist the researcher in determining appropriate methodologies for additional research on the concept to further science. This paper will conduct a concept analysis on stress among perioperative patients. The Neurman Systems Model focuses on stress reduction and addresses how stress and individual response to it affect the development,
Learning to cope with stress can greatly help your stress level. Your reactions to an event regulate its impact, it’s continually conceivable to reduce the amount of weight you may feel from that stress. When you determine the personal impact of stress it is called primary appraisal. We need to learn to take time to think the stress through and decide how we will respond and the significance of it. This process is called secondary appraisal. The energy you dedicate to relaxing and acquiring new stress management skills will always be a benefit in the quality of your physical and emotion focused coping. Learning to relax and thinks stressors through is a great technique when learning to deal with problem focused coping. This is the substance which all the other stress management skills are built upon. If we learn the ability to cope then out stress levels will and can remain low. We will be able to assess our current situation and without stopping we will be able to gain insight on how we are being affected. Managing the many conflicts of stress can be a critical tool in our everyday
According to my Holmes and Rahe self-assessment I am currently under a fair amount of stress which can lead to moderate illness in the future. I am not surprised at all with my results because I am currently encountering some stressful situations. I recently lost my uncle and now I am losing my aunt. On top of that my fiancé lost his job. I have been dealing with a lot but I am really trying different exercises to help control my