High-Tech, High-Stress Environment: Coping Strategies for the Perioperative Nurse

Abstract

The operating room (OR) is among the most technologically advanced environments within the healthcare profession. This high-tech environment has a unique set of occupational demands that can cause increased stress for the nursing staff. Situations that lead nurses to experience pressure in the OR include the need to work quickly, to face higher medical dispute risks, to work uncertain shifts, to handle precision instruments, and to master complex techniques. Along with this, perioperative nurses are struggling with heavy workloads, high patient acuity, various instrument processing issues, low morale, and staff shortages. The nurse must killfully manage all of these tasks while keeping patient safety at the fulcrum of it all. nterestingly, the most intense stressor perceived by OR nurses was patient safety. In addition to the occupational stressors that are involved in the OR setting, there are a myriad of interpersonal stressors. The manner in which staff communicate can often times be unprofessional and lead to unresolved conflict and hostile working environments. Recent studies have found that OR nurses felt bullied by other nurses and perceived themselves to be victims of physician-perpetrated abuse. Undoubtedly, he culmination of daily stressors that the perioperative nurse encounters can have dverse effects on one’s personal and professional life. Like perioperative nurses, burn nurses at the US Army Institute of Surgical esearch experience increased amounts of occupational stress. Nurses in the Burn enter provide care for patients with inhalation injuries, circumferential extremity urns, and general burns of the body. This challenging patient population requires hat the nursing staff have the necessary skills to communication with the patient and heir families concerning issues such as complex wound care to include pain control long with death and dying. These are sensitive topics that normally elicit emotion