Health problems and violence experiences of nurses working in acute care hospitals, long-term care facilities, and home-based long-term care in Germany: A systematic review

Abstract

Background Working in the nursing sector is accompanied by great physical and mental health burdens. Consequently, it is necessary to develop target-oriented, sustainable profession-specific support and health promotion measures for nurses. Objectives The present review aims to give an overview of existing major health problems and violence experiences of nurses in different settings (acute care hospitals, long-term care facilities, and home-based long-term care) in Germany. Methods A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed and PubPsych and completed by a manual search upon included studies’ references and health insurance reports. Articles were included if they had been published after 2010 and provided data on health problems or violence experiences of nurses in at least one care setting. Results A total of 29 studies providing data on nurses health problems and/or violence experience were included. Of these, five studies allowed for direct comparison of nurses in the settings. In addition, 14 studies provided data on nursing working in acute care hospitals, ten on nurses working in long-term care facilities, and four studies on home-based long-term care. The studies either conducted a setting-specific approach or provided subgroup data from setting-unspecific studies. The remaining studies did not allow setting-related differentiation of the results. The available results indicate that mental health problems are the highest for nurses in acute care hospitals. Regarding violence experience, nurses working in long-term care facilities appear to be most frequently affected. Conclusion The state of research on setting-specific differences of nurses’ health problems and violence experiences is insufficient. Setting-specific data are necessesary to develop target-group specific and feasible interventions to support the nurses’ health and prevention of violence, as well as dealing with violence experiences of nurses.

Nurses' emotional exhaustion: Prevalence, psychosocial risk factors and association to sick leave depending on care setting—A quantitative secondary analysis

“…However, care settings did not affect prevalence estimates in our sample (research question 2). This is in line with the results from Schaller et al (2021) who reported only small differences in health problems between the care settings. However, this could also be a result of lacking systematic analyses.…”

“…In Germany, within the context of our study, and many other countries, these are, among others, hospitals, nursing homes and home health care. Both the tasks of nurses and the working conditions differ in the three care settings (Gregersen, 2010; Schaller et al, 2021). For instance, the salary for nurses working in hospitals is quite higher than for nurses in nursing homes or home health care (Jacobs et al, 2016; Rohwer et al, 2021).…”

“…However, Bakker and Demerouti (2017) have noted that the role of these variables as a function of higher‐level contextual variables, such as nurses' care settings in our study context, has received little attention in JDR research. Therefore, to implement preventive interventions, which are feasible to the specific nurse setting it is necessary to explore the differences between nurses' health problems and their work‐related driving factors across with a context‐sensitive approach (Schaller et al, 2021).…”

Work-Related Health Burdens of Nurses in Germany: A Qualitative Interview Study in Different Care Settings

“…When compared to other professions, the nursing profession differs not only in terms of increased sick leave but also in terms of regular experiences of violence, which were described by the nurses as a typical work demand. Astonishingly, an everyday work demand such as the experience of violence has hardly been investigated in Germany [ 49 ]. In one year, 84–97% of nurses in Germany experience verbal attacks, most frequently in ACH, and 61–77% have experienced physical violence, especially in ACH and ICF [ 50 , 51 ], while in other jobs, violence, including collegial violence, is experienced by 16% of employees [ 52 ].…”

Influencing factors on the health of nurses—a regression analysis considering individual and organizational determinants in Germany

“…When considering health in nursing professions in Germany, research is predominantly conducted on mental health as outcome, which is primarily assessed in the form of the latent construct burnout [ 8 ]. It is known that high perceived quantitative workloads, demanding qualitative workloads or emotionally overwhelming situations, low perceived job control, weak social support at work, and work-home interference are risk factors for the development of burnout in healthcare professionals, regardless of their setting or professional role [ 9 ].…”