[The emotional labor of nursing: critical incidents and coping strategies]

Despite the suggestion to adopt a balanced approach between detachment and involvement, the nurse-patient relationship is always embedded with emotional conflicts.

To collect data on how nurses manage the emotional support to patients.

The study adopted the theoretical perspective of the emotional work. Fifty-three nurses completed a questionnaire investigating everyday "emotional accidents." The data were analyzed considering the strategies employed to address and resolve them.

All nurses exert an emotional work to try to outcome the dissonance between subjective emotions and emotional rules required by the professional role. There are three strategies: normalizing, regressive, transformative. Most of the emotional efforts are aimed at showing emotions in accordance with the role, even if they are dissonant with respect to the subjective feelings (surface acting).

Nurses are expected to practice an "emotional neutrality", but their profession continually exposes them to a heavy emotional work that may be at the basis of emotional exhaustion and burnout. Strategies should be adopted to prevent stress and health damages.