Longitudinal relationships between stress of conscience and concepts of importance

Abstract

The aim of this observational longitudinal cohort study was to describe relationships over time between degrees of stress of conscience, perceptions of conscience, burnout scores and assessments of person-centred climate and social support among healthcare personnel working in municipal care of older people. This study was performed among registered nurses and nurse assistants (n = 488). Data were collected on two occasions. Results show that perceiving one's conscience as a burden, having feelings of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and noticing disturbing conflicts between co-workers were positively associated with stress of conscience. No significant changes were observed during the year under study, but degrees of stress of conscience and burnout scores were higher than in previous studies, suggesting that downsizing and increased workloads can negatively affect healthcare personnel. Following and expressing one's conscience in one's work, and perceiving social support from superiors are of importance in buffering the effects of stress of conscience.

Levels of Conscience and Related Factors among Iranian Oncology Nurses

“…Dissimilar to our findings, some previous studies showed that female nurses had more job conscience than their male counterparts (Juthberg et al, 2007;Ahlin et al, 2013). However, few studies are available in regard to related factors of levels of conscience among Iranian nurses.…”

“…Nurses are one of the main components of healthcare system and a large part of the demands of patient care is centered on the work of nurses (Weaver, 2007;Ahlin et al, 2013). Nowadays, the delivery of high-quality care is expected (Jensen and Lidell, 2009).…”

“…For example the findings of studies in Finland (Saarnio et al, 2012) and Sweden (Tuvesson et al, 2012;Ericson-Lidman and Strandberg, 2013) showed that nurses experiences high levels of stress of consciences. Time pressure and high work load were the main causes that caused stress of conscience (Juthberg and Sundin, 2010;Ahlin et al, 2013). To the best of our knowledge, there are inadequate quantitative studies that examined level of conscience among Iranian nurses.…”

Associations between job satisfaction, person‐centredness, and ethically difficult situations in nursing homes—A cross‐sectional study

“…To obtain further knowledge and a broader understanding of the implications, more extensive studies and studies from different cultural contexts and healthcare systems which investigating the associations between person-centredness and job satisfaction among staff in NH are required. Additionally, researchers have investigated ethical issues concerning the negative emotions, stress, and strain evoked by care work (Åhlin, Ericson-Lidman, Ericsson, Norberg, & Strandberg, 2013;Glasberg, Eriksson, & Norberg, 2007;Redfern et al, 2002). To a limited extent, this topic involves job satisfaction.…”

Moral distress and the Australian aged care worker: A mixed methods study

“…Reliability provides a clear assessment of the "…repeatability of a questionnaire…" (Jones & Rattray, 2010, p. 370). Cronbach's alpha is purported to be the most widely used measure of internal consistency (Polit, 2010;Polit & Beck, 2012), and is a measure frequently reported as a component of instrument validation in nursing research (Åhlin, Ericson-Lidman, Eriksson, Norberg, & Strandberg, 2013;Glasberg et al, 2006;Gur-Yaish, Zisberg, Sinoff, & Shadmi, 2012;Halcomb et al, 2011). …”