Effects of Role Stress in Nursing

Effects of Role Stress in Nursing

Stress can lead to a significant effect on individual nurses in the health care sector. The effects of role stress can be worse when it becomes too overwhelming for the nurse. Too much workplace stress can result in poor decision-making, subjecting patients to a considerable risk since a nurse’s decision eventually affects the treatment outcome. Overwhelming role stress can also lead to a lack of concentration. That leads to poor performance due to inadequate attention that nurses tend to offer under pressure.

Poor concentration can also lead to the creation of uncharacteristic errors. It is brought about by exhaustion of the mind. Lack of concentration is often caused by frustrations, leading to a lack of motivation (Mojtahedzadeh et al., 2021). Overlapping roles creates anxiety for nurses, leaving them unmotivated and creating apathy, leading to poor quality of care in their practice. Besides, the strain results in psychological pressure, discomfort, and emotional exhaustion. After all, a nurse has numerous tasks in the same setting, and thus, they feel the pressure to take all the functions.

Too much role stress or strain has a significant effect on patient care. Adverse effects caused by role strain or stress result in poor patient care, especially when nurses lack concentration. It can result in poor treatment outcomes since patients will not get the proper attention and extreme care and reduce the job satisfaction of a nurse (Van der Riet et al., 2018). The productivity of a nurse is poor under stress or strain, thus resulting in poor patient care. Besides, the exhausting nature of nursing work affects their ethical decisions forcing them to display incompatible behaviors. Today’s healthcare is demanding for nurses, and there is often a staff shortage to meet the patients’ needs. For example, critical care nurses might question the value of saving a patient’s life and physiological measures that prolong suffering from no fruitful outcome.

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