Causes of occupational stress and resources on how to cope. Stress is a common reaction of mental and emotional pressure among nurses, carers, and social workers. This has a major impact on their physical and behavioural responses in the workplace. Stress in the workplace is also referred to as occupational stress and can cause mental health issues. Nursing, caring, and social work are all formidable jobs that require 24/7 vigilance, highly skilled professional training, and an immense passion for the occupation.

Nurses, carers, and social workers face numerous physical and psychological challenges when taking on their roles and responsibilities. These challenges are straining through increasing work pressure and high volumes of demand in the workplace.

Causes of Occupational Stress Among healthcare staff

1. Inefficient communication 

Besides poor teamwork due to a lack of communication, nurses, carers, and social workers may occasionally encounter conflicts between doctors and other medical staff. This could also include gaps in understanding or skill shortages. 

2. Stressful work environment 

Choosing to pursue the remarkable passion of becoming a nurse, carer, or social worker, one immediately knows that stress is inevitable in these particular work environments. Stressful work environments do not solely refer to the physical place of work but to the conditions as well.  

Frontline workers are affected by the stress that the patient's relatives or friends cause throughout the treatment process. Relatives and friends always have great expectations, unrealistic timelines, and heaps of questions that all put healthcare workers on the spot. 

Even though they are saving lives, healthcare staff put their own lives in danger whilst on duty. The actions of unstable patients and/or their relatives can be unpredictable thus it may cause life-threatening situations and emergencies. 

When unexpected acts of violence or threats occur, nurses, carers, and social workers rely on their co-workers and managers to assist in such cases. Therefore, they need to trust their co-workers and managers. This can only happen if they know they are equipped with the right knowledge and communication skills to assist with these matters. 

3. Working long hours 

Healthcare Staff work extremely hard and sometimes in unbearable environments where the work never ends and continues over holidays. Being underpaid with no rewarding incentives is also a major cause of stress.  

One of the most stressful things in the work environment (especially for nurses) is working the night shift and not getting much sleep, causing confusion in their bodies’ recovery routine by physically draining them. This will cause stress due to not knowing how their performance will be on the next shift. 

The above creates another stressor: getting someone to cover a shift when needed. As mentioned above it is a remarkable passion to become a nurse, carer, or social worker, this makes it a career choice of only a hand full of people causing a major shortage of workforce that skyrockets the workload of the current workforce. 

4. Knowledge expectations 

Every year, technology, medicine, and practice methods evolve, or change in the medical industry. Healthcare workers need to keep up with all these changes and constantly learn how to work with new machines, medication, recovery methods, etc. The one constant stressor among nurses, carers, and social workers is the ambiguity of responsibilities that they only get to know over time. 

It is important to realise that the causes listed above are by no means all the stressors that nurses, carers, and social workers deal with on a daily basis, and may cause long-term mental health issues, but there are several ways to cope with stress.