The Claybury community psychiatric nurse stress study: is it more stressful to work in hospital or the community?

Abstract

The Claybury community psychiatric nurse (CPN) stress study collected data on stress levels in 250 CPNs and 323 ward-based psychiatric nurses (WBPN) in the North East Thames region. Four out of 10 CPNs were found to be experiencing high levels of psychological distress on GHQ scores. Whilst both CPNs and WBPNs scored highly on scores of occupational burnout, especially on emotional exhaustion scores, WBPNs scored worse on emotional detachment from their patients and were achieving less personal fulfilment from their work. Both groups of nurses were more satisfied with direct patient clinical work than with their employment conditions, particularly their working environments and, for CPNs, their relationships with their managers. The different patterns of coping skills are explored and discussed for both groups of nurses, especially the use of social support, time management and organization of tasks. The study concludes that whilst major changes are occurring in the psychiatric arena for both groups of nurses, stress is reaping its toll on mental health nurses, in terms of higher absence rates, lower self-esteem and personal unfulfilment. This could not only affect the quality of patient care but also future career prospects for nurses. The study invites serious consideration of introducing stress-reducing measures in the work-place as well as further research into specific stressors for different groups of nurses.

Occupational Mental Health: A Study of Work-Related Mental Health among Clinical Nurses

“…among nurses population compared to 33.3 percent of the general population [11]. Gerald reported a prevalence rate of 34 percent the nurses, Fine, 41 percent [11,12]. Mums study results has shown that mental health problems in individuals with occupational burnout was significantly more [13].…”

“…These are: somatic symptoms (items 1-7); anxiety/ insomnia (item [8][9][10][11][12][13][14]; social dysfunction (item 15-21)‚ and severe depression (item 22-28) [7].…”

Stress, coping, burnout and job satisfaction in British nurses: findings from the Clinical Supervision Evaluation Project

“…This con®rms the ®ndings of the Claybury CPN Stress Study. 21 The compensation for this increase in stress is that nurses in the community have higher levels of job satisfaction and lower depersonalization burnout. The relationship between nursing grade and stress was slightly more complex.…”

Associations between Age, Years in Post, Years in the Profession and Personal Experience of Mental Health Problems in UK Mental Health Nurses

“…Wall et al (1997), using the GHQ-12 on 11637 NHS staff, found psychiatric morbidity of 26.8% 3Age, experience and years overall, with 30% for male and 29% for female nurses. Caseness in the UK has been reported at 42% for early career mental health nurses (Kipping, 2000), 41% for CPNs (Fagin et al, 1995;1996), 39% for CMHT staff (Johnson et al, 2011), 38% for CMHT staff (Walsh et al, 2002); 35% (Edwards et al, 2000), 31% and 27.9% for WBPNs (Fagin et al, 1995;1996), 30% for CMHT staff (Wykes, Stevens & Everitt, 1997), 29% for mental health trust staff (Johnson et al, 2011). More recently, Mark and Smith (2012) surveyed nurses accessed at random via the Royal College of Nursing (hence a similar target group to the one in the present study, albeit not mental health nurses), using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) (Zigmond and Snaith, 1983), and found 27.3% of nurses to meet the 'clinical cut-off for anxiety and depression.'…”