The stress experience of nursing staff in intensive care therapy

Abstract: Problem area. Understanding what stress experience the Lithuanian nurses in intensive care. analyzing the influence of stress to the her health. How nurses can it control and manage in their work. Research questions are: • How nurses understand, what is the stress? • What is the microclimat in intensive care department? • How you collaborate with colleagues? • What are the main reasons of the stress? • How the stress influence in your health? Overall research aim To describe nurses working in intensive care, their stress experiences and how to manage this. 1 part aim To identify stress experience of nurses in intensive care. This paper work has the following tasks: 1. To review that is the stress 2. To explain the stress causing factors in literature review 3. To illuminate how nurses can control and manage the stress theoretically 2 part study aim To illuminate experience of stress among Lithuanian nurses working in intensive care. This paper work has the following tasks: 1. To explore what is the stress. 2. To illuminate the nurses thoughts and feelings about their stress experience. 3. To illuminate that influence have stress to nurses in intensive care 4. To illuminate how is importance to manage and to control the stress in nursing work. This study. The thesis is designed as two part study. Systematically review of the literature relating to stress and nurse’s experience was used in 1 part of study. A literature review based on eleven scientific articles from 1993-2004, from the databases of PubMed and Elin @Blekinge, with the purpose to describe nurses experiences about stress in intensive care. A qualitative method with semi-structured interviews was used in 2 part study. Data collected from X intensive care of Kaunas Medical University hospital. Ten nurses took par in a semi-structured interview one-two times (about 30min. to 1 hour). Ethical approval for this study was granted by Ethics Committee of Kaunas Medical University hospital, Intensive care department which consist form several departments: Cardio anaesthetical, Central intensive care, Neuro surgical. Content analysis was used to classify the answers of the semi-structured questions. There was no specific theory used to classify information, data was the sole source of the analysis. The content analysis study goal is to offer knowledge of the experience relating to certain phenomenon and will also give a deeper understanding of the studied phenomenon. Through this analysis, the author tried to perceive the themes in the written material. The result of the study showed that most of nurses experienced negative feelings because of stress. The results showed that, this knowledge would help us understand the importance of how to manage and control nurses stress, in order to research general aim - the best caring and nursing of patients and the excellent medical aim.