Coping strategies and social support needs of experienced and inexperienced nurses performing shiftwork

Abstract

Findings suggest shift selection mitigated challenges of shift work for both inexperienced and experienced nurses, indicating autonomous roster selection is critical. Similarly, social support at work from senior nurses and management and at home played an important role in nurses' coping.

Resilience in nurses in terms of perceived social support, job satisfaction and certain variables

“…Nurses with 5 years or less of work experience in the profession had less ability to organise their daily work (structured style subscale), less desire to participate in social activities (social competence subscale) and a lower likelihood of having established a compliant relationship with family members (family cohesion subscale), together with generally low resilience. Such results indicate that work experience increases resilience, as the findings of other studies have previously shown (Ang et al, ; Gifkins, Loudoun, & Johnston, ; Kutluturkan et al, ; Zheng et al, ). Moreover, the self‐perception and self‐confidence of nurses who had worked for more than 10 years as nurses was higher than among other nurses in our sample.…”

“…More recently, Amarneh () identified that working in shifts ranked among the most important work‐related stressors for nurses. However, other authors have reported that working shifts has its advantages (Gifkins et al, ) and does not affect psychological wellbeing (Delgado, Upton, Ranse, Furness, & Foster, ). The low resilience of nurses working both day shifts and night shifts in our study can be explained by a deterioration in their circadian rhythms, especially due to working nightshifts, which can negatively affect physical and mental health as well as social life.…”

The sum of us. Implementing a Person Centred Care Bundle - A narrative inquiry

“…A stressful nursing environment can result in teams losing their ability to support each other as they become tired and less able to cope with the large number of tasks and decisions they need to make each shift ( Aiken et al, 2017 ). We know that shifts can negatively impact nurses and research demonstrates that strong support from the team and leaders can help nurses cope ( Gifkins, Loudoun, & Johnston, 2017 ). The nurse participants (16) reported that their leadership on the ward was supportive and dynamic.…”

The Sources and Effects of Occupational Stress on Recent Graduate Nurses

“…A limitation of the study is it solely focuses on the coping mechanisms, and not necessarily on how effective they are at managing workplace stress. Gifkins, Loudoun, and Johnston (2017) examined the coping mechanisms of nurses when working outside of regular daytime hours. In 2015, they conducted individual interviews with nine of the nurses had only worked less than one year and 12 nurses that had worked for at least three years at the time of the interview.…”