HNN301 – Mental Health Promotion

This assessment task gives you the opportunity to critically examine the impact
professional nursing can have on individual nurses’ mental health and to investigate
strategies that can promote resilience in nursing.
Introduction

Nursing field is linked with higher levels of stress, burnout syndrome and a lower degree of

quality of life disturbing their mental health mainly because of professional dissatisfaction,

long working hours, unsupportive managerial department and conflicting workplace

environment (Colichi et al., 2017). This paper is focused on initially representing the critical

examination of the impact professional nursing can hold over individual nurses’ mental

health. In such situation, it is essential for the nurse to be resilient to be able to cope and

recover from this mental health problem and experience. Further, this document investigates

the strategies which can promote resilience in nursing. In simple words, there will be the

discussion of evidenced based strategies which the nurses can implement for building self-

resilience.

There is a strong relationship between the nursing work process and the nursing life style

which are considered as the key cause of developing stress and several mental health

problems in nurses (Laschinger et al., 2014). This results in psychological and organic

imbalances and also causes compromise in the core development of labour activities and

efforts of the nurses (Vasconcelos et al., 2016). In the workplace environment, nurses

continuously interact with the patients as well as their friends/families which are probable

factors in fostering the emotions of anger, fear, embarrassment, stress, and desperation in

nurses, certainly if the nurses find no solutions for the issues of patients and their families

(Laschinger et al., 2014). This result in health professionals to become a lot more

complicated and they indulge in making the nursing and healthcare environment frustrating
(Koinis et al., 2015). The nursing personnel who do both physical and emotional work and

are being exposed towards the psychosocial and mechanical stress at the workplace usually

get psychologically affected (Eriksen et al., 2006).

The exposure towards the role conflicts at the workplace is another factor that is associated

with increased level of psychological distress in nurses. It has been stated that the

psychological distress is highly linked with "role difficulties" which is also defined as the

composite assessment tool included within role conflicts (Eriksen et al., 2006). The nurses

interact with several people at the healthcare settings including patients, their relatives, and

other healthcare professionals who usually communicate their role expectations (Holloway &

Galvin, 2016). The role conflict usually occurs if the role expectations indulge within the

conflict and even if the focal nursing person attains incompatible requests from either two or

more than two professionals or people or certainly when there is the conflict present between

the values or the needs of the nurse and the expectations attained from others (Eriksen et al.,

2006).

The immediate superior’s level of support for the nurses also acts as the workplace factor that

contributes towards the mental health of the nurses (Laschinger et al., 2014). It has been

reported that alterations within the work situation which have been reported to provide lesser

support as well as encouragement at the workplace are linked with the higher psychological

distress (Colichi et al., 2017). It is about the social support available at work is inversely

linked with psychological distress (Eriksen et al., 2006). The research studies reveal that the

social climate within the healthcare working unit (including relaxedness, supportiveness, and

suspiciousness) is positively related with prejudiced and tense climate. It is also negatively

associated with supportive and coordinated climate within the work organisation (Holloway

& Galvin, 2016).

The factors linked with nurses’ disturbed mental health also include patients’ irritated

behaviour, impatience, emergency care, irritated accompaniers, child care and intolerant

physicians within two different sectors at the simultaneous time (Holloway & Galvin, 2016).

The study defined that the excessive hourly work stress and load is responsible for hindering

the social life of the nurses and limit their enjoyment for the recreational activities (Colichi et

al., 2017). This contributes towards the mental and physical burden of the nursing staff and

this exerts the negative affect over both nurse’s work performance and life quality

(Vasconcelos et al., 2016). As per Holloway & Galvin (2016), the factors linked with the

psychological suffering of nurses consist of little autonomy given within the decision-making

procedure, very little recognition given for the imperativeness of nursing work and efforts

they have put in, inadequate level of continued training program and lacking resources and

materials in support. Even the exposure towards verbal and physical aggression, lower pay

and lacking job security makes contribution towards the issues of stress, sleep disorders and

burnout in nurses (Colichi et al., 2017).

It reveals that nurses usually experience several different types of violence which negatively

impact their health and ultimately their work performance. The violence of visitors and

patients are termed as the workplace hazard for every healthcare professional certainly for

nurses as they remain in interaction with them for majority of time (Bordignon & Monteiro,

2016). Even the violence is to be considered inherent towards the working relations present

between the supervisors and subordinates or work partners that sometimes occur within the

healthcare workplace having severe consequences (Bordignon & Monteiro, 2016).

It is essential to understand that every nurse experiences daily situations which can strongly

challenge their professional as well as personal resilience (Chen, 2012). It has been found that

the compromised nurse resilience is defined as a major factor which contributes in

compassion fatigue, burnout, absenteeism and finally attrition in nurses from their profession
(Cross, 2015). With conditions that are stressful for nurses affecting their mental health, the

capacity to make good recovery rapidly from complexities and toughness is necessary for

nurses and it is known as resilience (Grant & Kinman, 2013). It is necessary to acknowledge

that resilience is not at all a luxury for the nurses. Every forward-thinking nurse manager or

unit manager is dutiful to monitor nurses who are under her charge in terms of the signs for

weakening resilience (Harvey et al., 2014). The nurses are highly valuable for human

resources to implement the most evaluated and successful interventions to avid burnout,

reduced resilience and injury in nurses and patients under care. The role of nurse within the

healthcare is quite critical and crucial (Cross, 2015). Nurses cannot be left alone to guard

their health against deleterious and insidious procedures (Chen, 2012). As per concept

analysis, “Nursing student resilience is an individualized process of development that occurs

through the use of personal protective factors to successfully navigate perceived stress and

adversities. Cumulative successes lead to enhanced coping/adaptive abilities and well-being”

(Stephens, 2012).”

Reflection is the best strategy defined on the basis of evidence based practice for improving

resilience in nurses (Harvey et al., 2014). The theoretical work posits that the healthcare

workplace faculty can be efficient in promoting resilience in nurses certainly in the nursing

students by the process of teaching them about reflecting and persevering the conflicting face

(Grant & Kinman, 2013). Reflecting over the personal strengths as well as limitations assist

nurses in fostering several competencies linked with resilience, certainly enhancements in

coping, self-awareness and problem solving skills (Grant & Kinman, 2013). Within the

clinical contexts, the reflection process assists the nurses and midwives in tackling intractable

complexities and fostering resilient behaviours (McDonald et al., 2012). With developed

reflective abilities, emotional literacy is attained with accurate empathy assisting the
professionals in facilitating their good and supportive interpersonal relationships which are

effective in the process if buffering workplace stress (Grant, 2013).

Education is also termed as a good strategy to make nurses learn how to be resilient. It is

about conducting and involving nurses in resilience training sessions after every 3-6 months

(Cross, 2015). Even the social media has been found to be effective in enhancing resilience in

nurses. Facebook and Twitter are highly used for delivering educational messages to the

nurses and sharing ways to be able to recover from disturbing workplace experiences and

ways to be mentally strong. Social media is a great platform to discuss issues and challenges

in profession with other professionals through a global network (Stephens, 2012).

Emotional intelligence is another strategy to implement. It motivates oneself and also persists

within the frustrations controlling the impulse and it also delays gratification. Emotionally

intelligent nurse will be capable in regulating his/her mood and will keep distress from

swamping nurse’s thinking ability (Grant & Kinman, 2013). This way nurse will empathise

and hope better. It is a key component of emotional resilience. There is strong positive

relationship between the emotional intelligence and various positive outcomes like

psychological and physical health as well as life satisfaction of nurses (Grant & Kinman,

2013). When nurses are emotionally intelligent, they are highly psychologically flexible, co-

operative, optimistic, good decision making skills and socially confident level. The emotional

intelligence improves resilience and psychological health as it protects compassion fatigue

and burnout (Hackett 2013).

When nurses are given effective mentoring and peer coaching for improving their support, it

increases resilience. Nurses must be encouraged by the nursing managers to seek for effective

support within nursing practice (Harvey et al., 2014). The peer coaching scheme holds strong

potential for integrating imperative resilience facets like social support, goal setting and
reflection within nursing curriculum and practice (Grant & Kinman, 2013). With peer

coaching, there is a collaborative relationship that aims at improving personal development

by the process of assisting people in identifying their personal strengths, developing

reflective techniques and promoting self-awareness (Harvey et al., 2014). The mentoring

programmes assist the nurses in building resilience because the programmes give

opportunities in gaining support and improving problem-solving capabilities (Grant &

Kinman, 2013).

Conclusion

It is quite clear from this analysis and examination that nursing profession is associated with

continuous challenges and stressful experiences that result in disturbed mental health issues

in nurses. The resilience is a component which holds strong ability to help nurses in

managing such situations and experiences effectively. But, to build resilience, the nurses need

full support and encouragement from the senior nursing staff and management. At the same

time, the nurses have to work on building their resilience at their own with their own efforts.

References

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