Strategies for reducing stress and burnout in nursing

Three models of stress-the stimulus model, the response model and the cognitive-phenomenological-transactional (CPT) model-have been described in detail elsewhere (Farrington, 1995), and the notion of accepting occupational stress as an industrial disease has been suggested (Nursing Times, 1995). This article focuses on the nursing experience of stress and describes strategies for reducing stress and burnout on a personal and organizational level. It concludes by presenting a small-scale research study which examined the nature and impact of events perceived by postregistration nurses to cause personal psychological distress. The findings of the research show that certain stimuli are consistently perceived as being psychologically traumatizing in the daily working life of the student nurse. Nursing clearly remains an emotionally demanding occupation and more work is needed to examine the way in which events and microstressors are cognitively processed by nurses.