[How to care for patients who have HIV. Main stress factors]

The authors report some data about the main stress factors which affect nursing personnel who work with patients infected by HIV/AIDS, based on a sample of 22 nurses. In order to evaluate these data, the authors used the Labor Stress in Nursing Scale developed by Ballester, Gil and Carpi in 2002. The results obtained showed an average overall stress level of 4.4 on a scale with a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 7. These results also showed that the first seven stress factors for sanitary personnel are: 1) the aggressiveness shown by some patients, 2) the lack of recognition of the role played by nurses on behalf of the administration, 3) the impossibility of dedicating the time necessary to patients, 4) salaries, 5) impotence when facing inadequate demands made by patients, 6) relationships with patients' relatives, and 7) impotence when facing the anguish patients' relatives or intimate friends undergo. This sample showed that being older or having more seniority in the nursing profession offers protection against some of these stress factors. This study concludes that it is necessary to intervene to increase the resources available to these professionals so that they may deal with the main sources of stress in the work place. The authors summarized their study at the II Symposium of the Association for Motivation and Emotion in Salamanca.