Sjuksköterskors upplevelse av stress i arbetsmiljön

Sammanfattning: Studies have shown that stress is common in the nursing profession. Purpose: The aim was to investigate nurses' experience of stress in the work environment at the University Hospital in Uppsala and how nurses deal with this stress and whether the perceived stress experienced affect patient safety and in what way. Method: The study had a descriptive, qualitative design based on nine interviews. The selection criteria for the study was that participants were nurses and that they had worked at least one year within the profession and that they had experienced stress in their work environment. Data from the interviews was analyzed using the qualitative content analysis method by Graneheim and Lundman. Results: The analysis resulted in three categories: "Stress in the workplace”, "stress management" and "patient safety” and showed that all participants had experienced stress repeatedly in their workplaces. The main experience of stress was the feeling of not keeping up with the tasks. Stress did that work became unstructured. The stress was handled by doing things faster. Participants felt that patient security was compromised by stress at work. Conclusion: Stress is perceived as a major problem within the profession, compromising patient safety and in the long run causing health problems for nurses. There are both good and flawed strategies to deal with stressful work and education in stress management need to be included in the education of nursing students and be provided to professionally active nurses.