Cent Eur J Nurs Midw 2013, 4(3):622-627

Workplace stress of nurses in palliative nursing care

Mária Sováriová Soósová^1,*, Jana Sušinková¹, Mária Cenknerová²

¹ Department of Nursing Care, Faculty of Medicine, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Slovakia

² Personal care, Auhofstrasse 225, Vienna, Austria

Aim: The aim of this study is to assess the occurrence of stress, stressors, and stress coping strategies and stress predictors in nurses providing palliative care (PC).

Methods: The study used a standardized questionnaire - Coping Strategies Inventory and a questionnaire aimed to assess stress and stressful situations. Data were processed by descriptive statistical methods and a linear regression analysis.

Results: Sixty eight nurses working in PC at the average age of 37.9 years and the average term of practice in PC of 8.22 years participated in the survey. Overall, we only observed rare occurrence of stress in the study sample of nurses, and stress and we have noted responds to stress particularly in the physical and emotional area. The highest stressors were patient's death and dying, workload (particularly staff shortages), working environment and relations with patient's family. Nurses rather used active stress coping strategies in stressful situations, especially problem-solving and social support. Passive stress-coping strategies (self-criticism) and younger age were significant predictors of stress in this sample group. These variables explained 26.6% of stress variability in nurses working in PC.

Conclusion: Training focused on decreasing vulnerability of nurses, more efficient using of active stress-coping strategies, and more efficient communication with patient's family seems to be an appropriate solution to reduce stress.

Keywords: stress, nurses, palliative care, coping

Published: September 30, 2013  Show citation