Work-related stresses of pediatric bone marrow transplant nurses

The stress that nurses experience when working in specialty units, such as the intensive care unit (ICU) and the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), has been described in many studies as being a significant variable in nurse retention, job satisfaction, and quality of patient care. Although some investigation of stress has extended to other areas of nursing, one specialty where stress has not been studied is bone marrow transplant (BMT) nursing. The purpose of this study was to identify work-related stresses of pediatric BMT nurses. The convenience sample consisted of 31 RNs and LPNs who had at least 6 months of experience in a laminar air flow (LAF) BMT unit in a pediatric facility in the southwest United States. Eighteen nurses responded to a questionnaire asking them to describe two incidents in their experience that were most stressful to them. Thirty-seven incidents were collected. Categories and subcategories described in the literature, as well as from the researcher's experience, were used in the content analysis of the incidents. Each incident was analyzed independently by three nurse-judges who identified categories and subcategories in each incident. Several new subcategories were identified from the data. Negotiations for categorization occurred until full agreement among the nurse-judges was reached. Categories of stress identified, in decreasing order of frequency, included: patient care, philosophical/emotional/ethical, environment, interpersonal relations/communication, knowledge base, management of the unit, bureaucratic/political/organizational.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)