Nursing and Mental Health
Nursing is the primary patient-focused, care-giving profession that is essential to any healthcare facility. Nurses are prone to experiencing work-related and mental burnout due to their involvement in arduous physical and emotional tasks, most of the time under harsh conditions. Mental burnout and stress symptoms caused by a stressful employment diminish the quality of health services provided as well as job satisfaction and interest levels. The purpose of this article is to investigate how employee/staff concerns, work environment, job satisfaction, and bullying affect nurses' mental health.
Working Environment Stress and Mental Health
Working environment stress is associated with job satisfaction, burnout, and mental health outcomes. Thus stressors leading to the experience of workplace environment related stress, comprising of poor supervision (leadership), conflict with patients and colleagues, high demanding roles as well as overtime are all linked to one or more aspects of mental health. According to Maslach Burnout Model, protracted exposure to situational and environmental stressors leading to work linked stress, leads to emotional and mental exhaustion, depersonalization as well as a reduced individual achievement (Leiter et al., 2014). Likewise, workplace environment linked stress due to stressors like demanding workloads and staff issues such as inadequate resources have been found to be linked to poor job satisfaction hence mental stress. This can be attributed to a disparity between job anticipations and real working environment that leads to increased degrees of work-related mental stress and diminished job satisfaction levels (Hooker, et al., 2017).
Job Satisfaction and Mental and Physical Health
Research proves higher degrees of job satisfaction within workplace environments that are less stressful. Known stressors like awful patient outcomes, high workloads, clashes with peers, and job demands coupled with poor leadership and little or no support are all linked to poor mental and physical health outcomes (Khamisa et al., 2015).
Employee Issues and Mental Stress
Available research proves that employee issues comprising excessive administration, colleagues failing to do their roles well, and stock control affects the degree of mental stress experienced by nurses. Employee issues have been cited as one of the most important mental stressors amongst nurses. According to a study conducted by Khamisa et al. (2015) mental stress linked to job satisfaction and employee issues were found to be major contributors. Whereas research has proved that employee issues like poor staff management coupled with resource inadequacy are linked to job satisfaction, other studies have concluded that security risks inherent within a given work place environment also have a considerable role in determining job satisfaction amongst nurses. Moreover, workplace environment security risks also have a considerable impact on the job satisfaction of the nurses (Khamisa et al., 2015).
Security Risks and Mental Health
Thus, security risks inherent within the workplace environment have also been proved to impact the overall mental health of nurses. Security risks within the workplace environment coupled with other employee issues constituting resource inadequacy and poor staff management all have serious impacts on nurses' mental health (Swansburg, 2012). Fundamentally, this implies that nurses undergoing work-linked stress due to employee issues are most certainly to feel incompetent in enjoying activities and taking part in healthy social behavior, a factor that thwarts adaptational outcomes, for instance, good somatic health and psychological wellbeing. Moreover, stress linked to patient care is similarly important in impacting nurses' mental health (Gatchel & Schultz, 2012).
Bullying and Mental Health
Apart from the workplace environment and employee issues, bullying is another factor that greatly affects the mental health of nurses. Bullying might not only create but also maintain a toxic workplace epitomized by reduced work motivation, absenteeism and errors, lack of concentration, and poor mental health (Roussel & Roussel, 2016). An environment like that can lead both to poor productivity as well as poor quality of patient care. A big number of victims that are bullied in the nursing career assume a great deal of off days every year in an endeavor to at least escape temporarily from their experiences, a phenomenon that leads organizations to suffer from reduced profits since the nursing care demands do not afford these institutions the privilege of losing nurses (Barker, 2010).
Impact of Bullying on Nurses' Mental Health
According to research, bullying obliterates the self-image and self-confidence, repeatedly driving victims to extreme mental torture and eventual resignation from their positions. In addition, bullying presents a major risk to the safety of the patient because it negatively impacts their mental wellbeing hence the main role of offering patient care and disrupting communication and teamwork (Norman & Ryrie, 2013). Consistent with various stress theories, bullying at the workplace has been identified as a key source of distress linked with consequent health and reduced well-being, to reduced job performance and satisfaction, reduced dedication, as well as increased levels of absenteeism and sickness (Adams, 2015). Moreover, workplace bullying has been linked to psychotropic drug use (Khamisa et al., 2015). Workplace bullying amongst nursing professions is a key concern in most leading health institutions. Support systems normally play an important role in tackling the negative impact of bullying and they must be considered when designing various troubleshooting and prevention policies regarding bullying.
References
Adams, L. Y. (2015). Workplace mental health manual for nurse managers.
Barker, P. (2010). Mental Health Ethics: The Human Context. New York: Routledge.
Gatchel, R. J., & Schultz, I. Z. (2012). Handbook of occupational health and wellness. New York: Springer.
Hooker, R. S., Cawley, J. F., & Everett, C. M. (2017). Physician assistants: Policy and practice.
Leiter, M., Bakker, A. & Maslach,C. (2014). Burnout at Work: A Psychological Perspective. New York: Psychology Press.
Khamisa, N., Oldenburg, B., & Petzer, K. (2015). Work Related Stress, Burnout, Job Satisfaction and General Health of Nurses. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , 652-667.
Norman, I. J., & Ryrie, I. (2013). The art and science of mental health nursing: Principles and practice.
Roussel, L., & Roussel, L. (2016). Management And Leadership For Nurse Administrators. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Swansburg, R. C., & Swansburg, R. J. (2012). Introduction to management and leadership for nurse managers. Boston: Jones and Bartlett.
