Introduction
Nurses are considered to be the most affected by mental health issues among other health professionals, with significant consequences for patients, other care providers, and healthcare organizations. Among the prevalent mental health issues are tension, anxiety, and the latest stage, burnout. Concerns regarding nurse mental health are common in many countries, which occur due to understaffing and other stressing factors, such as poor leadership. Thus, the matter of mental health of nurse professionals is of utmost importance in the healthcare sector. As a result, the given subject involves specific cultural and ethical perspectives and analysis of these perspectives is vital to analyze and implement policies as well as see the overall trend of the issue.
This paper will present the cultural and ethical perspectives related to the thesis. The level one cultural question is about the societies that are most affected by the issue of nurses’ mental health. At the same time, the level one ethical question pertains to factors that are related to the issue and how they are addressed. Lastly, the level two ethical question illuminates the laws that target the given issue.
Cultural Perspective
Societies that are most affected by the Issue of Nurses’ Mental Health
When it comes to the cultural perspective, the mental health of nurses does not mainly depend on cultural values or norms but rather on the prevalence of the workforce. According to recent studies, European and Asian countries face the problem of aggravated nurse mental health. Meanwhile, the situation in developed countries in North America and the Sub-Saharan African region has the highest rate of nurses who deal with stress and anxiety (Dubale et al., 2019). For example, in the study conducted by Woo (2020), a total of almost 46,000 nurses from 49 nations were included in the comprehensive study, and 61 articles were included in the meta-analysis. This resulted in a total of 113 studies for the comprehensive research and 61 papers for the meta-analysis (Woo, 2020). According to the research, anxiety and burnout symptoms were prevalent in 11.23% of nurses worldwide (Woo, 2020). The rate of emotional exhaustion was highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, whereas it was lowest in Europe and Central Asia.
Another study, conducted by Fish et al. in 2022, analyzes the prevalence of stress in nurses in eastern and western cultures and evaluates exhaustion influences on patient care throughout cultures. In the study, the Australian group had much greater levels of emotional stress and dissociation than the Chinese group. Australian respondents rated patient care worse than Chinese respondents, and they were less likely to think that support resources were available in their current workplace (Fish et al., 2022). Patient care was strongly associated with adequate financing and staffing sufficiency, nurse leadership and assistance, and dissociation among Australian respondents (Fish et al., 2022). Meanwhile, patient care was strongly linked to the management and resource sufficiency, nurse leadership and assistance, accomplishments, and burnout among Chinese respondents (Fish et al., 2022). Thus, stress, anxiety, and burnout are more common among Australian nurses than they are among Chinese nurses. Throughout cultures, different characteristics of stress are linked to patient care (Fish et al., 2022). For increasing stress and patient care in nursing, culturally appropriate treatments may be preferable to uniform ones.
As for North America, the United States also tends to have higher rates of nurses who struggle with workplace stress, anxiety, and burnout. At this point, stress and poor mental health among nurses have been linked to demanding tasks, responsibilities, and conditions of the workplace. Furthermore, workplace conditions that might serve as stress factors are inadequate staffing ratios, miscommunication between doctors and nurses, and a lack of administrative leadership in nursing environments.
Ethical Perspective
Laws that Pertain to the Issue
Stress and anxiety have the greatest professional consequences in the U.S. The government has significantly improved the nursing environment to counteract this issue. The Nursing Practice Act now permits healthcare professionals to play a larger role, and the American Nurses Association attempts to improve trained nurses’ positions (Ohue et al., 2021). The expansion of nursing Ph.D. programs at large organizations have increased the number of competent and committed staff nurses across the U.S. (Ohue et al., 2021). In the United States, establishing cooperation and support among nurses via more meaningful communication may be able to minimize stress and attrition (Ohue et al., 2021). As for another developed country in North America, Canada, the government also struggles with a similar issue and incorporates such policies (Ohue et al., 2021). At this point, such approaches help both the U.S. and Canada prevent increasing attrition rates and avoid mental health issues among healthcare professionals.
How are Money, Power, and Control Related to the Issue?
Considering the aforementioned details, money, power, and control are peripheral factors that influence the issue of nurses’ mental health. These elements might solve the problems of the work environment and fair pay for the intense workload. Yet there are other factors that might be of greater importance. The findings of the study conducted by Mudallal et al. (2017) show how important leadership is in increasing employee satisfaction by raising the meaning of work, allowing staff to contribute to making work-related decisions, conveying trust in staff members’ expertise to succeed, enabling achievement of goals, and providing autonomy. As a result, the ethical considerations of the nurses’ mental health should involve financial aspects and individual acknowledgment.
The policy in the United States aimed at the aforementioned issue is the Safe Staffing for Nurse and Patient Safety Act of 2018. According to the Library of Congress (2018), patient care, medical error management, inability to salvage incidents, patient deterioration, patient mortality, and nurse exhaustion are all dependent on the number of nurses employed in a healthcare facility. As a result, having more competent registered nurses on duty is linked to fewer adverse clinical outcomes and improved efficiency (Congress, 2018). The document further states that patient safety is jeopardized by healthcare professionals’ exhaustion and stress (Congress, 2018). Adequate staffing rules and procedures, according to academic research, are an excellent technique for preventing such weariness and protecting patients. Consequently, Congress states the recommendations for the hospitals. Each healthcare facility must form a hospital nursing workforce committee (Congress, 2018). In accordance with the criteria provided by Congress, the Committee shall prepare a hospital-wide staffing strategy for nursing services provided in the facility.
Conclusion
Hence, the issue of the mental health of nurses is prevalent in countries worldwide. Yet, cultural values and norms do not influence the given matter. As seen from the statistics, the issue of nurse stress and anxiety stems from inadequate staffing, poor work conditions, and intense workload. However, while nations in Middle Asia and Europe have lower rates of nurse tension, North America and Sub-Saharan Africa regions have the highest rates. When it comes to the ethical perspective, it can be seen that the peripheral factors that influence the given issues are money, control, and power. Nevertheless, the main factors include acknowledgment, proper communication among healthcare professionals, and autonomy. Thus, many policies in the United States and Canada are aimed at given problems, including the Safe Staffing for Nurse and Patient Safety Act of 2018 and The Nursing Practice Act.
References
Congress. (2018). Safe staffing for nurse and patient safety act of 2018. Library of Congress.
Dubale, B. W., Friedman, L. E., Chemali, Z., Denninger, J. W., Mehta, D. H., Alem, A.,… & Gelaye, B. (2019). Systematic review of burnout among healthcare providers in sub-Saharan Africa. BMC Public Health, 19(1), 1-20.
Fish, J. A., Sharplin, G., Wang, L., An, Y., Fan, X., & Eckert, M. (2022). Cross‐cultural differences in nurse burnout and the relationship with patient safety: An East‐West comparative study. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 78(4), 1001-1011.
Mudallal, R. H., Othman, W. A. M., & Al Hassan, N. F. (2017). Nurses’ burnout: the influence of leader empowering behaviors, work conditions, and demographic traits. The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 54, 1-10.
Ohue, T., Aryamuang, S., Bourdeanu, L., Church, J. N., Hassan, H., Kownaklai, J., Pericak, A. & Suwannimitr, A. (2021). Cross‐national comparison of factors related to stressors, burnout and turnover among nurses in developed and developing countries. Nursing Open, 8(5), 2439-2451.
Woo, T., Ho, R., Tang, A., & Tam, W. (2020). Global prevalence of burnout symptoms among nurses: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 123, 9-20.