Emergency clinician perceptions of occupational stressors and coping strategies: A multi-site study

Abstract

Background: Research exploring multi-disciplinary emergency department (ED) clinicians' perceptions of their working environment is limited, although exposure to occupational stressors is frequent. This study describes ED clinicians' perceptions of their working environment, occupational stressors and their use of coping strategies. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in 2017 at two Australian public hospital EDs. Nursing and medical staff completed a print-based survey of 100 items, which included three scales and a demographic questionnaire. Responses were analysed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis. Results: Doctors and nurses (n = 241) completed the survey (response rate 45%). Workload featured as a major factor in perception of the working environment and was a frequently occurring stressor. Death or sexual abuse of a child was the highest rated stressor, despite relative infrequency of exposure. When coping strategies were adjusted for sex, female respondents were more likely to use negative strategies such as blaming themselves (Odds Ratio,; p < 0.01) and less likely to use positive strategies such as exercise (OR 0.2 [0.1-0.6]; p < 0.01). Conclusions: While stressors were similarly rated among the diverse group of clinicians, the ways in which they reported coping varied. Further research is required to facilitate design of staff support strategies.

A Multicenter Study into Burnout, Perceived Stress, Job Satisfaction, Coping Strategies, and General Health among Emergency Department Nursing Staff

“…Emergency departments (EDs) are experiencing increasing service demands [15,16], which can lead to increased workload and pressures on ED nursing personnel [17]. Moreover, in ED, waiting times, a demanding public, overcrowding, and inadequate human resources are common stressors [17,18].…”

“…Emergency departments (EDs) are experiencing increasing service demands [15,16], which can lead to increased workload and pressures on ED nursing personnel [17]. Moreover, in ED, waiting times, a demanding public, overcrowding, and inadequate human resources are common stressors [17,18]. Similarly, occupational stress, defined as the perception of a discrepancy between environmental demands (stressors) and individual capacities to fill these demands determined by work organization, work design, and labor relations [19], is also associated with burnout [20].…”

Core components of a staff wellness strategy in emergency departments: A clinician‐informed nominal group study

“…First, using a modified NGT, all the clinicians who agreed to participate were emailed a link to a survey, to identify the stressor they felt was most important to address. The stressors contained in the survey were derived from triangulation and integration of previously collected quantitative and qualitative data 11–12 . The second part of the data collection process was conducted through two separate face‐to‐face consensus NGT sessions with two different groups of participants 9 .…”

Development of a revised Jalowiec Coping Scale for use by emergency clinicians: a cross-sectional scale development study

“…As such, the relationship between JCS subscales, the WES-10 subscales and the EDSS were examined. For the EDSS, we focussed on the five stressors that are most commonly reported in the ED: heavy workload, environmental concerns (eg, overcrowding), inability to provide optimal care, high acuity patients and workplace violence 28 29. Scatter plots showed that all associations were linear with no influential outliers.…”