Introduction
The emotional and mental toll of juggling personal life with a career in nursing is real. Stress from caring for patients, working long hours, and handling paperwork can harm employees’ well-being and productivity. Nurses’ well-being and patient outcomes can be greatly improved by better understanding their personal and professional challenges. Consequently, this study aims to investigate the various sources of stress that nurses face in their professional and personal lives. It focuses on how these stressors manifest themselves in their bodies and what nurses may do to alleviate the detrimental consequences of stress on their health. The results of this study can be used to improve nurses’ quality of life, decrease their risk of burnout, and increase the quality of care they provide to their patients.
Literature Review
It is generally known that the personal and professional difficulties that nurses face can put a significant amount of mental, physical, and emotional strain on them (Lorente, Vera, & Peiró, 2021). Personal stresses include factors like obligations to one’s family and other loved ones, financial difficulties, and health problems. Professional stressors include issues like working long hours and having arguments with one’s coworkers and superiors (Ratrout & Hamdan-Mansour, 2019). The numerous types of stress that nurses must contend with on the job can have a detrimental effect on both their physical health and their level of job satisfaction.
Emergency nurses experience high levels of secondary traumatic stress. According to the findings of other studies, nurses who work in intensive care units or who provide care for patients suffering from several chronic conditions experience high stress levels (Al Barmawi et al., 2019). For nurses, the detrimental effects of work stress may be compounded by personal concerns such as financial challenges, familial obligations, or health issues. According to several studies’ findings, a few broad categories of stresses could potentially be experienced while working. In the study that Lorente, Vera, and Peiró (2021) conducted on the levels of stress experienced by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic, they discovered that job demands, a lack of support from coworkers, and a loss of control over work were among the most relevant aspects. In a similar vein, the systematic research conducted by Kriakous et al. (2020) indicated that common pressures for healthcare staff include the burden of work, the pressure to complete tasks on time, and difficulties in communicating with patients.
Compassion fatigue, burnout, and moral discomfort are just a few of the stressors that critical care nurses face on the job, and they are all linked to adverse outcomes such as decreased job satisfaction, plans to leave the field, and mental health issues (Al Barmawi et al., 2019). These issues can be mitigated by reducing the stress experienced by nurses, which requires understanding the causes of this stress and implementing stress-reduction measures. Compassion fatigue is a well-known issue in critical care nursing, but coping mechanisms have been identified as a possible moderating factor (Al Barmawi et al., 2019). Medical personnel can benefit from mindfulness-based stress reduction programs to improve their mental health (Kriakous et al., 2020). Furthermore, during the COVID-19 pandemic, coping and resilience were discovered to mediate the link between stressors and nurses’ psychological distress (Lorente et al., 2021). Secondary traumatic stress can devastate emergency nurses (Ratrout & Hamdan-Mansour, 2019). As a result, it is critical to implement interventions that help alleviate these stressors and sustain these caregivers.
Personal and professional pressures can take their toll on nurses’ mental and physical well-being. High stress levels are linked to nursing burnout, unhappiness with one’s work, and plans to leave a career, all related to leaving a career (Al Barmawi et al., 2019). Long-term mental and emotional stress can lead to various physical disorders, including hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and musculoskeletal diseases, to name just a few of these conditions (Ratrout & Hamdan-Mansour, 2019). Moreover, anxiety, depression, and emotional exhaustion in nurses have been linked to stresses experienced in both their personal and professional lives (Lorente et al., 2021). The potential for the adverse effects of stress on the mental health of nurses to have an impact not just on the nurses but also on the patients they care for should be of particular concern.
Studies have shown that nurses under much pressure are more prone to make errors that endanger their patients (Ratrout & Hamdan-Mansour, 2019). Stress harms nurses’ ability to think clearly and make informed judgments, which harms their patients’ results. Stress, which has been rendered significantly worse by the COVID-19 epidemic, has hurt nurses’ physical and mental health. According to a study conducted by Lorente et al. (2021), higher stress levels experienced by nurses during the pandemic were connected with lower levels of resilience, which resulted in increased levels of psychological distress for the nurses. As a result of the outbreak, nurses have had to put in long shifts, care for a greater number of patients, and run the danger of becoming ill themselves. Throughout the pandemic, these factors have increased the amount of stress and burnout experienced by nurses (Kriakous et al., 2020). Effective coping mechanisms are necessary for nurses to reduce the negative effects of stress brought on by personal and professional obligations.
Studies have shown that mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) benefits nurses and other medical staff in improving psychological performance and coping with stress. In addition, positive coping strategies, such as chatting with friends, exercising, and taking a vacation from work, have all been connected to lower rates of burnout and mental distress among nurses (Lorente et al., 2021). Self-care practices such as meditation, exercises involving deep breathing, and taking breaks during work hours are examples of activities that have been useful in reducing stress and promoting well-being among nurses (Kriakous et al., 2020). When their employers offer opportunities for professional development, cultivate an atmosphere of support at work, and make stress management services available, registered nurses can better cope with the pressures and demands of their jobs (Ratrout & Hamdan-Mansour, 2019). Self-care and asking for assistance when one is in need are two of the most important things nurses can do to better cope with the stress they experience in their personal and professional lives.
Methodology
Research Design and Methodology and Participants
This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the sources of stress, coping mechanisms, and overall health of registered nurses, both in and outside of the workplace. This study gathered information from a representative sample of one hundred registered nurses through a self-report questionnaire. The participants in this study were all registered nurses, with the majority of the participants being female and at least 35 years old. The participants had a wide range of work experience, ranging from one to twenty-five years. On average, the participants had eight years of professional experience. The participants came from various healthcare settings, such as hospitals, clinics, and community health centers.
Data Collection and Analysis Procedures
In order to compile this data, a self-report questionnaire was used, with questions regarding demographics, sources of stress (personal and professional), methods for dealing with stress, and overall physical and mental health. The questionnaire was either emailed to the participants’ places of employment or personally delivered by the researcher. Every participant was provided with detailed instructions on filling out the questionnaire, and they were assured that their responses would be kept confidential. The data from the self-report questionnaire were put through descriptive statistics, which allowed for calculating things like frequencies, percentages, and means. This study conducted correlation analyses on several factors, including personal and occupational stressors, coping mechanisms, and physiological and psychological well-being.
Results
A registered nurse’s physical and mental health can be negatively affected by the stress they face from a variety of sources, including money problems, family obligations, and work overload. Research conducted by Al Barmawi et al. (2019) discovered that among a sample of 100 registered nurses, 80 percent were female, and the median age was 35 years. The nurses, who had an average of eight years of experience, reported feeling private and public pressure. The majority of participants (56%) cited financial concerns as a significant source of personal stress, followed by family obligations (45%) and health issues (35%). The most stressful aspects of the participants’ jobs were workload (cited by 78% of respondents), time constraints (63%), and dealing with complex patients or families (55%) (Al Barmawi et al., 2019). The sources of stress were found to harm the physical and mental health of the participants, with financial difficulties, domestic responsibilities, and illness being the most significant stressors. Respondents’ strategies for coping with stress included conversing with loved ones, working up a sweat, and rearranging their schedules.
Mental and physical health were discovered to be significantly impacted by the various workplace stressors. The mental health of medical professionals improved after participating in mindfulness-based stress reduction programs. Rattrout and Hamdan-Mansour examined the adverse effects of secondary traumatic stress on the health of emergency nurses in a separate study (2019). Lorente et al. (2021) examined nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic and found that coping and resilience moderated the relationship between stressors and psychological distress.
Discussion
According to the results, various personal and professional pressures can significantly impact nurses’ physical and mental well-being. The most commonly cited sources of stress were dealing with work obligations, witnessing or experiencing terrible events, and tending to patients with chronic illnesses. The study also revealed that nurses who used healthy coping mechanisms, such as reaching out to friends and family for help and regular exercise, had fewer health problems. This study’s results back up what has been found in other studies about the high stress levels experienced by nurses, especially those who work in intensive care units and emergency rooms (Al Barmawi et al., 2019; Ratrout & Hamdan-Mansour, 2019). Consistent with earlier research on mindfulness-based stress reduction (Kriakous et al., 2020) and coping and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, the study demonstrates the significance of positive coping strategies for reducing the deleterious effects of stress on nurses’ well-being.
The implications for nursing practice arising from this study are substantial. It stresses the need for hospitals and other healthcare facilities to provide nurses with resources to help them deal with personal and professional difficulties, especially those who work in high-stress settings like intensive care units and emergency rooms. Mindfulness-based interventions, social support programs, and physical activity programs are only a few examples of what may be done to improve nurses’ mental health and resiliency.
Limitations
Several caveats to this study must be noted. Limitations include a small sample size and the study’s limited generalizability to the population. This means that the findings may not apply to other people or different healthcare systems. Second, self-report measures were utilized, which opened the door to the possibility of bias or social desirability effects. Moreover, the study did not investigate the efficacy of targeted interventions to lessen nurses’ stress. Future research should broaden existing studies to include a broader range of populations and healthcare settings, develop more objective measures of stress and evaluate the efficacy of targeted interventions for reducing stress levels among nurses.
Conclusion
Physical and mental health were investigated in connection to the stressors nurses endure in their personal and professional lives. These findings show that nurses are subjected to a wide range of stressors, some of which may directly impact their health and enjoyment at work. The negative effects of stress on nurses’ physical and mental health may be mitigated using coping methods. Good coping strategies should be made available to nurses, such as mindfulness-based stress reduction, social support, physical activity, and taking time off from work. Furthermore, healthcare facilities and systems can reduce nurses’ stress by reducing their workload and increasing access to resources and support. Longitudinal studies examining how different types of stress affect nurses over time are highly recommended for future research.
References
Al Barmawi, M. A., Subih, M., Salameh, O., Sayyah Yousef Sayyah, N., Shoqirat, N., & Abdel‐Azeez Eid Abu Jebbeh, R. (2019). Coping strategies as moderating factors to compassion fatigue among critical care nurses. Brain and Behavior, 9(4). Web.
Kriakous, S. A., Elliott, K. A., Lamers, C., & Owen, R. (2020). The effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction on the psychological functioning of healthcare professionals: A systematic review. Mindfulness, 12(1), 1–28. Web.
Lorente, L., Vera, M., & Peiró, T. (2021). Nurses´ stressors and psychological distress during the Covid‐19 pandemic: The mediating role of coping and resilience. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 77(3), 1335–1344. Web.
Ratrout, H. F., & Hamdan‐Mansour, A. M. (2019). Secondary traumatic stress among emergency nurses: Prevalence, predictors, and consequences. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 26(1). Web.