Factors associated with emotional exhaustion in undergraduate and postgraduate nursing students

Abstract

The backbone of a caring nurse is compassion, when nurses have feelings of empathy for the suffering of others and understand patients' personal feelings or experiences without being judgemental. [1] As a result, nursing is particularly stressful, [2][3][4] as nurses not only cope with their personal stress but also with secondary forms of stress due to the nature of their interaction with patients and their families. Nursing students may be more vulnerable to the harmful effects of secondary stress, as they are developing the skills necessary to fulfil their professional roles effectively. [5] They are also faced with academic stressors, [5][6][7][8][9][10][11] such as practical training in environments characterised by high patient loads, insufficient resources and long working hours; [12] lack of professional knowledge and skills; [5] and unclear roles and responsibilities. [8,10] While nursing education fosters empathy and compassion in the student nurse to prepare them for their professional role of caring for others, [13] ongoing empathetic and compassionate behaviour and stress pave the way for burnout and compassion fatigue. [12,13] Burnout is a combination of negative behavioural, attitudinal and physical changes in response to work-related stress. [14] Burnout or compassion fatigue among nursing students may result in students failing to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to care for their patients. This situation has a domino effect on the quality of care, which could expose patients to healthcare-related risks. [15] With this in mind, this article describes the emotional wellbeing of undergraduate and postgraduate nursing students at a university in South Africa (SA). Wellbeing was defined by levels of emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue and perceived stress. More specifically, the objectives of the study were to: • describe levels of emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction and perceived stress experienced by nursing students • compare levels of emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue and perceived stress of undergraduate and postgraduate nursing students • determine the influence of compassion fatigue, perceived stress and disengaged coping on emotional exhaustion of undergraduate and postgraduate nursing students. Methods Design and sampleA cross-sectional descriptive survey was undertaken at a purposively selected SA university. There was a total of 685 registered under graduate (n=333) and postgraduate (n=352) nursing students at the university. Four hundred and seventy-one questionnaires (258 undergraduate and 213 postgraduate) were returned (68.8% response rate), of which 27 were discarded owing to extensive missing data, leaving a total of 444 completed questionnaires (252 undergraduate and 192 postgraduate).Background. Nursing students face dual stress from a combination of academic and clinical demands, which may affect their emotion...

The relationship between secondary traumatic stress level and perceived caring behaviors among nursing students

“…Engelbrecht and Wilke (2021) state that with the increase in perceived stress in nursing students, they have difficulty in perceiving the knowledge and skills required to provide care, and this situation affects their clinical practice. It was reported that it hurt the quality of care (26) reported that clinical practice is a stress-causing factor for nursing students, and the factors affecting this include lack of professional and knowledge, patient care and environmental stress (26,27) Pfeiffer and Grabbe (2022) reported that nursing students had difficulty and hesitation in explaining their traumatic experiences during clinical practice in order to develop an educational model for increasing trauma resilience in the education of nursing students (17). Kelle Dikbaş and Okanlı (2022) reported that the level of STS was high in nurses who could not cope effectively with stress (9).…”

Exigencias académicas en estudios de posgrado a distancia y sus vínculos con el agotamiento y la regulación de las emociones propias

“…En cuanto a la H1 y la H2, los resultados apoyan el proceso de deterioro de salud de la teoría DRL el contexto de posgrado de enseñanza. Así, la percepción de sobrecarga de trabajo académico actuaría como un elemento favorecedor del malestar académico, en línea con trabajos anteriores (Engelbrecht et al, 2021). Además, se pone de relieve la necesidad de rediseñar las actividades y la metodología para impartir contenidos en las titulaciones de posgrado.…”