Working conditions and mental illness among nursing workers

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health
• Mental Health
• Nursing Studies

Background:

• Growing mental illness rates necessitate understanding work-related mental health impacts.
• Nursing, the largest health sector workforce, experiences high exposure to occupational stressors.
• Increased prevalence of work-related mental illness among nursing professionals is a significant concern.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify prevalent mental illnesses and distress in Brazilian nursing professionals.
• To correlate these conditions with reported working conditions.
• To analyze coping strategies documented in recent scientific literature.

Main Methods:

• An integrative review of electronic health databases was performed.
• The literature search was conducted in May 2020.
• Seventeen relevant studies were selected and analyzed.

Main Results:

• Hospital environments, heavy workloads, precarious conditions, tight deadlines, and team/patient conflicts are primary stressors.
• Common mental health outcomes include anxiety, demotivation, irritability, fatigue, insomnia, and musculoskeletal disorders.
• Predominantly individual coping strategies are reported, indicating a gap in collective approaches.

Conclusions:

• Workplace stressors in hospitals significantly impact nursing professionals' mental health.
• Stress-related conditions like anxiety and fatigue are frequent among this group.
• There is a notable absence of research or implementation of collective coping strategies for occupational stress in nursing.