Introduction
Stress refers to how the body responds to any change. A stress factor or stressor is a situation or pressure that results in that experience. Normally, people think of stress factors as negative such as exhausting work schedules, difficult clients to work with, other challenges, and family relations. Contrary to this notion, anything that places high demands on a person can be stressful. How individuals handle such situations determines their impact on their lives. Long-term exposure to stress factors can be a great concern. The body starts to react negatively toward the stress, which can result in poor health with time. In work settings, this can influence the productivity of an employee. Currently, in the United States, there is a shortage of nurses in the healthcare sector. The morale of healthcare professionals has been reduced, and industry leaders must find ways to help the workers. This paper aims to address the stress factors in the workplace and programs organizations could implement to help employee stress.
Stress Factors
Regardless of the sector, co-workers can create a toxic culture or environment within the work setting. Most of the time, such surroundings are characterized by a lack of collaboration and cooperation among employees. The choice to work from home during the pandemic may have felt great for those in organizations with this type of culture (Chachula & Ahmad, 2022). However, there are still such occurrences, even for individuals working remotely. Toxic traits by colleagues do not simply stop since they are not in person. They can even follow someone or observe through virtual communication, including zoom.
A toxic workplace consists of an environment where dysfunction is found. Such surroundings impact employees by making them feel disengaged and demoralized. It can result in high stress levels, depression, fatigue, anxiety, and burnout. The report shows that in healthcare facilities or organizations, nurses become unmotivated to offer proper care services to the patients, and thus, their productivity lowers (Chachula & Ahmad, 2022). Cases of negligence are twenty percent higher in institutions with toxic cultures (Chachula & Ahmad, 2022). In a sector that directly deals with people’s lives, finding a solution to the problem is important.
Bullying and harassment
In extreme instances, some colleagues can be demanding and manipulative and controlling, which is equivalent to bullying a person or harassing them. Study shows that 29% of individuals have been bullied in work settings, and 72% reported that the cases were performed by older employees of particular organizations (Chachula & Ahmad, 2022). Stress and poor health can become part of the everyday life of individuals being harassed. Another research claims that workers believe that many organizational leaders overlook reports of bullying and harassment (DĂaz McConnell et al., 2022). By doing this, the managers and bosses are enabling bad behavior that is ruining the wellbeing of their younger employees.
Poor Communication
Ambiguousness and inadequate or misleading communication at workplaces can result in unidentified issues. This is usually followed by the inability of a fellow employee to listen. A study revealed that this is the most common cause of stress at work (DĂaz McConnell et al., 2022). Poor communication can be in several forms, but the results or outcomes are the same. This mostly happens to new employees at an organization (DĂaz McConnell et al., 2022). For instance, when nurses are first employed and given specific roles to perform at a healthcare facility, it is the role of the more experienced workers to help by giving them directions and needed information. However, in some instances, the opposite happens and leads to anxiety as the employees feel as if they will be forced to leave work due to failure to perform their tasks. As this continues over time, it causes them to develop stress.
Relationships at Work
Employees spend more time with each other than with friends or family, and the choice of who their colleagues are is determined by the leaders of an organization. Individuals are hired for their capabilities and not their matching or compatibility with others, which might lead to friction between peers. Even though most workplaces can be supportive, it is not always the case. People can be susceptible to unhealthy competition or a trait such as jealousy (DĂaz McConnell et al., 2022). If this is unchecked, it can grow into intimidation, bullying, or gossiping. Going to a work environment where colleagues’ behavior undermines a person is highly stressful. It is not always easy to identify, but a great leader should be able to notice the tension between members of the staff.
Stress with Patients
A nurse is highly likely to develop stress after the death of a patient they connected with through offering them care. Nurses have more contact with their clients than other healthcare professionals. In some aspects of hospital care, an individual needs hospitalization multiple times, or it is prolonged due to the condition. This enables the nurses to know the patients and families well. The more often the sides meet, the greater the bond established between them. Dying is an inseparable as well as integral phase of life. The phenomenon has always followed human existence (Jordan et al., 2022). The atmosphere of death can be associated with personal fears and feelings, which make the experience depressing and distressing.
Dying is a challenging time in a sick individual’s life as it is filled with anxiety for the person themselves and those around them. In the work settings of a hospital or healthcare facility, it is common for people to witness death. Every event is painful but inscribed in human existence. A nurse usually accompanies a dying individual, and they are obligated to perform their duties in a professional way when handling such a client (Jordan et al., 2022). For nursing staff, similar cases are connected with strong emotions and enormous stress. In 2010, it was discovered that the stress of caring for dying patients was the main cause of high levels of occupational burnout among nurses (Jordan et al., 2022). This means that many nurses, regardless of how they may try to act as if the events are familiar, suffer within themselves.
There are other sources of stress for a nurse while at work, but the death of someone they had become accustomed to appears to be the main one. A study revealed that apart from the shortage of equipment and staff, the client’s demise is usually painful to accept (King, 2022). Additionally, the fear of death is common among healthcare workers and is related to a negative attitude toward caring for a dying client (King, 2022). The passing conflicts with the uncertainty of the therapeutic effect and superiors caused enormous, more than that which is experienced in other areas of work. There is an insufficient finding on the emotions that accompany medical workers while working with a critically sick person (King, 2022). In addition, there are few articles that highlight the methods of dealing with feelings related to dying patients. Helping someone in the last days of their lives is not easy; thus, the great load is associated with challenging circumstances.
The capacity to discover oneself when a client passes, the need to support the deceased’s family, and the necessity to handle individual emotions, are factors that impact the behavior of nurses as professionals and humans. In the present situation of the healthcare system, where there are cases of death due to COVID-19, the nurses are the most stressed (King, 2022). Generally, a patient’s death is regarded as one of the professional circumstances in nursing. Nevertheless, despite having self-control and a calm approach toward the problem, there are still some emotions members of the healthcare need to understand how to handle. The most common consist of anger, sorrow, helplessness, and abandonment.
Family Stress Affecting Work and Vice Versa
During the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses are among the people that were tasked with helping the infected and those in quarantine. It reached an extent they could no longer attend to their private lives since it was feared that they could infect their relatives or loved ones from interaction with patients. For those who were single before the start of the pandemic, it was easier to deal with the times.
However, it became harder for individuals in committed relationships, especially where children were involved. This resulted in stress for both the nurses and their loved ones. As the cases continued to rise, it became even harder for medical experts to claim when the situation would change (King, 2022). The number of deaths rose faster than initially expected, and the fear of losing one’s people increased. This means that, on the one hand, the nurses would think about their families and what would happen if they died. On the other hand, their families, children, spouses, and relatives would have thoughts about what challenges they were facing while at work. This situation impacted both parties negatively, especially emotionally (Kyron et al., 2019). Such sacrifices were noted by the government and citizens too, who considered the healthcare workers heroes of the time (King, 2022). In spite of the importance of family, the nurses understood that they had a role to play in the fight against the spreading of the pandemic and the death of patients.
Recommendation
Similar to how exercise is recommended to help other workers and people, in general, deal with stress, it can aid nurses in coping with their situations. Therefore, organizations should introduce mandatory physical training three or more times every week for nurses (Lowe et al., 2022). This has been proven to be an effective way of reducing stress. It helps to lower adrenaline and cortisol and boost endorphins. It improves energy, which means that the nurses will not be exhausted at the end of their shifts. Even though they work for long hours, it would be appropriate to create short periods on their schedule to allow exercising. In addition to that, listening to music while physically engaging one’s body is helpful in lowering stress levels.
Apart from exercising, it is recommended that nurses find people within the nursing field to talk to about stress. Organizations can create support groups for the employees where they get to meet therapists and other professionals qualified to educate them on an issue such as stress (Trépanier et al., 2022). After long shifts, it has been discovered to be helpful to talk to someone concerning the emotional situation in which a person. A therapist, especially if the stressor involves grief after witnessing the death of a patient, maybe the best. In addition to that, there are fellow nurses who undergo the same issues. Sharing and discovering that others are experiencing similar problems will allow most to understand that they are not alone. This will release the emotional burden that exists on the healthcare workers.
Conclusion
The paper has addressed the stress factors in the workplace and programs organizations could implement to help employee stress. For instance, it has been noted that toxic culture, bullying and harassment, relationships at work, and the death of patients and family are among the major stress factors for nurses. Stress has been identified as how the human body reacts to a change, while a stress factor or stressor is a situation that causes the experience. It is essential to understand that toxicity in the workplace environment can result in the demoralization of employees. This is closely related to bullying and harassment initiated by the more experienced workers over new and younger nurses.
The impact of low morale among nurses, similar to any other employee in other sectors, is low productivity. Since the role of a nurse is caring for patients seeking medical attention, it becomes harder for the latter to get better as the caregiver’s emotional state is affected. It is the responsibility of leaders in the nursing field to ensure that their employees are protected from such situations. Apart from harming the quality of services of a particular hospital, it could impact the whole industry. Adopting programs, including workout sessions and support groups for healthcare workers, can be effective in guaranteeing a healthy mental space for the employees.
References
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DĂaz McConnell, E., Sheehan, C. M., & Lopez, A. (2022). Intersectional and social determinants of health framework for understanding Latinx psychological distress in 2020: Disentangling the effects of immigration policy and practices, the Trump Administration, and COVID-19-specific factors. Journal of Latinx Psychology. Web.
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