Dive Brief:
- Nurses who practice coping mechanisms to guard against the effects of workplace incivility are better able to avoid burnout, poor mental health and turnover intentions, according to a new study in Health Care Management Review.
- The findings were based on a national sample of 596 Canadian nurses who completed mail surveys two times, a year apart.
- The survey results supported the "hypothesized protective effect of relational occupational coping self-efficacy," or in other words, the idea that nurses who believed they could look past workplace incivility were more successful at doing so, the authors reported.
Dive Insight:
While the study is specific to 596 nurses and to the issue of workplace incivility, it may offer some level of hope for physicians struggling with burnout from workplace stress as well.
The issue has risen in prominence in recent years, as stats show 300 to 400 physician suicides per year, as well as more than half of physicians reporting burnout, with stress from healthcare reform driving much of the pressure.
Officials are taking a more serious look at the issue as burnout threatens to shrink the ranks of nurses and physicians desperately needed nationwide. The CMS is getting in on the act with a new initiative aimed at reducing stress-inducing administrative burdens. However, even while policy makers try to help, a separate recent physician survey recently concluded healthcare practices and hospitals themselves are failing to do their part in trying to reduce or prevent burnout.
Based on the new nurse survey, the authors suggest organizations should take a role in providing nurses with opportunities for building coping strategies to deal with their job demands and difficulties with interpersonal interactions.