Further to my last post on nurses and stress: an email to the RCN has produced this link to the full Beyond breaking point report.
For those interested, here’s what the conclusion from the Executive Summary says:
The 2012 survey findings highlight the high levels of stress among the nursing workforce. Stress can be a causal factor for health problems, physical injuries, psychological effects and burnout. In addition to the high personal toll, stress is a major cause of both sickness absence and presenteeism and affects the ability of workers to be effective.
The survey reveals that the main causes of stress are high workloads, long hours, unrealistic expectations, lack of job control, conflicting roles, bullying and violence, poor working relationships and a lack of engagement in workplace change. Addressing these problems is an obvious way to improve nurses’ working experience, and in turn improve the safety and quality of care for patients.Issues of workload, stress and working life are, however, often symptomatic of systemic organisational problems. Poor work environments and working relationships damage the ability of nursing staff to provide safe care and there is a direct correlation between job satisfaction and patient satisfaction.
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