Title : Addressing the well-being of our nurses as we would our patients
Abstract:
Let’s change the age-old rhetoric of the nursing profession, which is “survival of the fittest,” to “nurses helping one another survive.” Changing the dialogue comes with changing the culture and belief that some forms of suffering in the nursing profession are a necessity to build strength. Showing emotions and asking for help is a sign of weakness and humility. In May 2023, the American Nurses Foundation conducted a Mental Health and Wellness study with more than 7,400 nurses and found that 2/3 of nurses who said they are suffering from mental anguish or toxic emotions are either not seeking or not receiving mental health support and 56% say there is stigma as a health care provider associated with receiving mental health care (The American Nurses Foundation Says Action Is Still Needed to Address Serious Nursing Workforce Challenges, 2023). Many know that multiple factors influence a nurse’s well-being, such as the external environment, work conditions, and organizational structure. However, to address this issue, the nurses must share some responsibility. We must support our fellow nurses in need and show unification in times of stress and anxiety. Providing cognitive-behavioral therapy programs that integrate mindfulness into staff nurses and including these programs in nursing orientation and residency programs will allow novice through expert nurses to gain and build upon skills that assist with identifying needs, managing stress, and engaging in productive lifestyle behaviors. These programs should be created by behavioral health nurses and facilitated by behavioral health nurses or nurses who completed CBT training. Having these programs designed and facilitated by nurses is beneficial due to the dynamic of the nurse-to-nurse relationship bonding through the shared experiences and challenges that nurses face in healthcare, which makes us more relatable to one another. Feelings of stress and anxiety are consistently increasing among nurses, leading to an influx of nurses leaving the profession, which propels the revolving door of the nursing shortage, resulting in burned-out nurses who are overworked and stressed leaving the profession. The CBT programs that integrate mindfulness will provide nurses with empowerment, positive emotions, and skills to recognize and support other nurses experiencing crisis. Fellow nurses, managers, hospital administrators, and others must empower nurses to invest in their self-care as much as they invest in caring for their patients. When nurses practice self-care and have sufficient personal and systemic support, the results are healthier, happier, and longer-lasting futures in nursing (Williams et al., 2022).
Audience Take Away:
- After this presentation, the audience will be interested in adopting forms of mindful cognitive-behavioral therapy programs for nurses at their practice to improve nurse’s well-being that will benefit nurses job satisfaction, retention, and overall patient care.
- Learning about mindful cognitive-behavioral therapy programs will help audience members individually by providing skills and techniques to improve their ability to better manage stressful circumstances in the work environment. It will also provide audience members with skills to recognize crisis and support their fellow nurses during stressful circumstances.
- This evidence-based driven systemic review of mindful cognitive-behavioral therapy to support nurse well-being will provide the audience with relevant organized data that assist nurses with fostering mental stability, improves emotional regulation, and prevent nurse burnout. Adopting mindful CBT programs into the new employee orientation and staff training is a practical solution to the ongoing and revolving problem of nurses leaving the profession due to being overworked and stressed, which leads to nursing shortages that result in nurses being overworked and stressed.
