How Much Stress is there in Nursing?

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From Student Nurse to Burn-Out

Nursing is attractive to many young people starting their careers as the need for skilled nurses is in constant demand. Students may earn their practical nursing license within two years of formal study, and continue to study part-time with a degree program. However, as many as one out of five nurses abandon the effort after the first year.

There are several reasons for this. First year nurses are often thrown into the field with an expectancy of their ability to perform before they have gained the experience needed for confidence and competency. They are called to the highest standards of organizational abilities and are committed to remembering very fine detail. It’s not just that their job demands long hours on their feet, the job is emotionally draining. Their natural empathy as care takers often reflect in their emotional state, not only on the job, but in their home life.

Building a Safety Net

The degree of stress in nursing is great enough to make it a major area of concern within the health care industry. Stress not only causes nurses to abandon the profession in the first year, it can have a negative effect on the nurse’s ability to perform, reflect on patient-care outcome and cause direct conflict with the nurse’s social interaction with the medical team and family members.

One area of concern has been around the verbal abuses nurses suffer. While the attending physician is often blamed for stress in nursing, studies have shown that the worst verbal abuses beginning nurses have to endure is from other nurses, with family members adding to the fuel next, and physicians ranking in third place.

Seminars and articles devote a great deal of time to stress in nursing, suggesting ways to reduce stress, such as maintaining a regular diet and exercise program, keeping communications open with others at all times and taking advantage of mentors or preceptors. A great deal of focus has been on administrators and managers to encourage support groups within the work place and to foster frank discussion groups among the nurses.

Building New Solutions

To buffer the effects of stress in nursing, many hospitals have been introducing residency programs. The programs are designed to help in the transition between a student nurse and a registered nurse. Novices to nursing are assigned to more experienced nurses, who take them under their wings, council with them and guide them through all the vital aspects of nursing. The costs for acquiring a resident nurse is estimated at around $5,000 per nurse, but the costs involved in recruiting and training a replacement for a burned-out nurse can fun as high as $50,000.

Nursing as a profession requires an on-going education. The field of medicine is evolving rapidly, along with new techniques in treatment and patient care, technical instruments and machinery and policies that rely on computerized, distance care and Internet communications. Nurses are encouraged to continue their education throughout their career. As they gain greater abilities, they also gain greater confidence, relieving a lot of their stress in nursing.

Most of all, nurses are being taught to take time out for themselves. As they gain in their self-awareness, they develop a better understanding about their relationships to others and to their sense of fulfillment. It’s a review and appraisal of who they are, what they have accomplished and how well it fits their goals as a life-long member of the community.