Deakin University: Mental Health Promotion for Nurses Report

This report critically examines the detrimental effects of workplace factors, specifically bullying and shiftwork, on the mental health of nurses. It highlights the high levels of stress and potential for mental ill health within the nursing profession, emphasizing the demanding nature of the job. The report delves into the causes of stress, including long working hours, work pressure, poor communication, and emotional vulnerability, leading to chronic physical ailments, and psychological distress. It analyzes the impact of bullying, both from colleagues and the organization, and its influence on nurses' mental wellbeing. The report also explores social, economic, environmental, and political factors contributing to nurses' mental health challenges. Furthermore, it identifies and explains strategies for promoting mental wellbeing, such as organizational initiatives to address bullying, resilience programs, and early intervention for mental health disorders. The report underscores the importance of proactive measures, including counseling, recreational activities, and supportive work environments, to safeguard nurses' mental health and ensure effective patient care.

Running head: Mental health promotion
Mental health promotion
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Authors notes:

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Mental stress faced by nurses
Nurses are very likely to experience occupation stress in their workplace that is
affecting their mental health. Long working hours, work pressure and poor communication
skills with the hospital staffs are the main concerns of occupational stress among the nurses.
Nurses working in ICUs and critical units develop more stress and increased anxiety
symptoms. This kind of stress reflects in their family life and also lead to inadequate sleep
(Laschinger et al, 2016). All these factors have resulted in chronic physical ailments in many
nurses. Demeaning and disadvantaging the target are common acts of bullying that is
triggering the mental distress for nurses (Berry et al., 2016) They are also becoming more
prone to cardiovascular related problems and premature death. Nursing needs the
professionals to be emotionally strong and there are many cases like death of their patient or
sufferings of the clients that make them emotionally vulnerable.
Work place bullying and its effect on health workers
There are many negative factors in bullying that trigger this social phenomenon.
Individual factors like age and seniority play an important role (Berry et al., 2016).
Workplace bullying may be from the organisation that prevents them from work stability and
this may be hinder for their mental health (Berry et al., 2016). Nurses are subjected to
immense stress due to their work nature and have high tendency to bullying by seniors (Berry
et al., 2016). Situations like not getting assistance from the seniors or bullying in social or
political context is a serious issue. This kind of bullying may range from a few days to
months, which gradually affect the mental well being of the nurses and is reflected in their
work (Berry et al., 2016). Bullying in the form of verbal abuse or continual criticism affects
their mental health tremendously (Keller et al., 2018). The nurses become emotionally
vulnerable and the situation makes them difficult to concentrate in their work (Keller et al.,

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2018). Many times nurses face bullying from the organization also in the form of false
complaints. In such situations generally nurses are targeted and face lot of interference in
their work practice (Keller et al., 2018).
Social factors governing the issue
There are many common factors like social, economic, environmental and political
that results in affecting the mental health of nurses. The lack of support from the seniors or
hospital staff is a common social factor that prevails in the issue. According to many nurses it
is difficult for them to make others understand about the work pressure they face and kind of
stress they are in. Nurses are also underpaid in many hospitals and very meagrely paid for the
extra work they do, thus compelling them in aneconomical pressure to stay in the given pay.
They are not paid well and financial incentives are also not favourable (Greenglass & Burke,
2016). The income inequality compels them to work under strenuous pressure and thus
affecting their mental health.
The environment of the workplace is also an important factor like proper
infrastructure and supporting peers. There are many incidence by bullying faced by young
nurses, which leads them to depression. Political pressure may also be present in hospitals
that may come in the way of nursing practise. Political views related to any disease or any
subject like euthanasia may put nurses in dilemma or treatment subjected to pressure. Such
kind of emotions may affect the nurses mental health and bring in behavioural changes. All
these factors play a key role in mental health of nursing that pressurises the nurses and affect
their mental health (Thornicroft et al, 2016). Work demands and psychological demands by
both the hospital staffs and patients has put nurses under immense stress and affecting their
overall health. The nurses are in need of adequate mental health care by recognising the
complexities of all these factors.

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Promotion of mental wellbeing for nurses in workplace
The adverse situations affects the mental wellbeing of the nurses tremendously and
must be given proper attention by the organization. Organizational barriers and risks faced by
the nurses must be properly addressed by the hospitals (Chambers & Donnelly, 2017). Nurses
must be influenced to address those situations and have a proper dialogue so that the act of
bullying is prevented (Ganz et al., 2015). The act of bullying is an offensive act that must be
discouraged by initiatives like punishing the culprit on repeated bullying (Chambers &
Donnelly, 2017). This way healthy work place environment can be maintained. Resilience
programmes are preventive approach for the mental well being for the nurses (Ganz et al.,
2015). It is important to apply resilience skills at work to prevent such practice of bullying
(Ganz et al., 2015). It is important to cherish social interaction to develop resilience at work.
The nurses for a sense of purpose must develop realistic goals.
Health care promotion for nurses
Mental health is an important factor for psychological well being and in nursing
practice it is very important to realise that a psychologically stressed nurse cannot effectively
care for their patients. (Khamisa et al,2015). Primary health care model ensures basic
strategies to care for mental health among the nurses. According to the model it can be said
that mental health care goes beyond the clinical factors like social factors that must be
considered for strategy planning in mental health care. With proper implementation from the
hospital staffs there can be change in the working environment and less bullying faced by the
nurses.
According to common principle of primary health care it is also the responsibility of
individuals to take care of self health, so in such cases nurses must also see to it that are
getting adequate rest during the week ends and must ask for help whenever they need. This

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way their problem can be conveyed to other person who may help or take her for mental
counselling. Early intervention is mandatory to address the illness otherwise may prove fatal
and difficult to treat. It is important to strengthen the protective factors to get the desired
result in mental health (Khanade & Sasangohar, 2017). There must be active discussion about
the mental health of nurses among each others to curb the menace because many times it go
undetected. Positive psychotherapy must be aimed to increase awareness and engagement
that can highlight the problems of emotional imbalance faced by the nurses due to work
pressure. Nurses must be supported to address their mental disorder and initiation must be
supported.
Early risk signs associated with mental health
Mental health disorder often goes undetected with the patient suffering but unable to
express. The early risk signs consists of many behavioural changes like anger, anxiety or
sudden social withdrawal. Anger is a strong emotion that is a way of expressing their
helplessness. There may be commitments that nurses may fail to deliver and this can result in
anger or sometimes there is no such specific reason (Kim & Kang, 2015). In such conditions
the patients relationship wit the nurses often get affected. Prolonged depression or sudden
withdrawal from social activities s an early sign of depression in young nurses. Many nurses
complain of not being able to concentrate in their work and that can also lead them to sadness
or unexplained grief.
All these emotional changes have a massive impact on their work and relationship
with their peers. The emotional changes would also make them feel forgetful and may tend to
put little or no attention to their physiological needs like not taking their food in time,
sleepless nights or missing any form of medication if prescribed. Slowly the mental
challenges also hamper the physiological well being of the nurses. Sleepless nights make the

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person tired and lethargic that makes the condition worsen and they develop withdrawal
symptoms from work. Delusions or strange thoughts can also accompany with other feelings
resulting in confused thinking. The risk factors must be treated as early as possible otherwise
it would be difficult to overcome all the issues (Laschinger et al, 2015). Prolonged depression
may also result in low output in work and may lead to premature death due to suicide. These
signs are early symptoms that says about the mental health of nurses and how they are
affected by depression.
Interventions for promoting mental health
There must be proper interventions to address the mental issue and effective ways to
treat it. The nurses must not be given extra work load so that they can have time for
refreshment. For those who are affected by mental ailment must be given proper counselling
and therapy best suited. The staff and team members must be educated and known about the
situation so that they can extend their help and support to them. There may be recreational
activities for the staff members and nurses once in a month or an interactive session where
they can tell about their thoughts (MacPhee, Dahinten & Havaei, 2017). There must be
proper initiatives by the hospital administrators to see that the nurses are not compelled to
work extra by ensuring proper ratio of nurses to the patients. Nurses are often needed to face
emotional situations like death of a patient or an accident prone case, which can make them
emotionally vulnerable. In such cases the nurses must be counselled by senior hospital staffs
or nurses who can intervene and give them proper counselling in dealing with such issues.
healthy work environment can be ensured by proper communication skills among the nurses
that would reduce the gap between the nurses and may be supportive in such situations. The
social reasons cannot be declined fully therefore, the nurses must be encouraged to address
such issues and sought help whenever needed. Family members and friends must also be
involved in such issues as they can bring a key change (McGinty et al, 2015). They must be

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adequately educated about mental health menace and how taking certain measures they can
resolve the issue by understanding early signs of symptoms of mental illness.

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