An Intervention to Reduce Stress Level of Medical Staff On a Cancer Ward - Essay Example

? An intervention to reduce stress level of medical staff on a cancer ward Business An intervention to reduce stress level of medical staff on a cancer ward The nature of work performed by medical staff members makes them susceptible to high levels of stress. They are numerous ways in which stress can be conceptualized among individuals. Psychologically, stress can be defined as pressure or strain from an external stimulus (Applebaum et al., 2010, 323-328). Outcomes of stress can range from mild to severe and the nature of medical staff's responsibility places both the individuals and patients at risk if the matter is not addressed (Laranjeira, 2012, 1755-1762). Stress has only recently been acknowledged as a medical threat to an individual both physically and psychologically and has been found to have an influence on an individual's daily activities. There are three major aspects that are characteristic of stress and these include stress mediators, stressors and stress responses to a particular stimulus. Stress is achieved when an individual is unable to adapt or cope with external stimuli. In a hospital environment, in this case the cancer ward, medical personnel are exposed to long hours of work and patients under severe trauma (Burgess et al., 2010, 129-140). Therefore, the combination of these factors along with factors outside the hospital result in high levels of stress among medical staff (Applebaum et al., 2010, 323-328). Researchers have stated that personnel working in the above mentioned units are at a greater risk of stress than other people (Lamberth and Yunyan, 2006). As mentioned above, staff members in these wards are often exposed to family members and patients suffering from terminal illness and this means that each day they have to deal with life and death situations (Lamberth and Yunyan, 2006). In addition, the medical staff are unable to help some of their patients which means that they are exposed to stressful conditions of caring for individuals which they know are going to die. They are also burdened with the responsibility of informing family members and other loved ones of information concerning the complex and often fatal health conditions of patients (Burgess et al., 2010, 129-140). Several researches have confirmed that these interactions have adverse effects on the psychological status of staff members and long term exposure to these conditions will lead to stress among them and can affect the way they perform their daily routines (Applebaum et al., 2010, 323-328). Hence, these conditions demand that nurses are assisted in the adaptation process and the hospital equips them with possibilities to cope with these stressful conditions (Burgess et al., 2010, 129-140). In turn, when the medical staff are assisted in coping with these stress factors there is a significant improvement in the quality of patient care. Stress among medical staff leads to an increased amount of medical errors and this can jeopardize the care of the patients. There are many treatment interventions that are used to enable patients to relax and reduce their stress levels (Lim et al., 2010, 251-258). Many studies have discovered that relaxation is the best way to reduce the levels of stress among staff members. This paper will analyze a cost efficient mode of intervention to enable stress reduction in cancer patient wards. On such economic method is the use of music in the wards to help create a relaxed atmosphere between both the patients and the medical staff (Lim et al., 2010, 251-258). This method is advantageous in its costs and the fact that it does not require a complicated set up procedure. In addition, no other requirements such as training or hiring new staff members are necessary for this procedure. Music is an intimate subject as each individual has his or her personal tastes, however, studies have shown that other genres of music tend to install a calm psychological state within an individual (Lim et al., 2010, 251-258). As mentioned above, different genres of music tend to relax individuals and hence reduce the likelihood of them developing stress and one such genre is that of classical music. In addition, classical music is a neutral style compared to other modern types of music, hence, the majority of individuals have stated that they prefer this style to others (Quinal, 2009). In addition, this style of music has been utilized by surgeons in the operation room and has also been found to have positive results. Surveys that were carried out in different hospitals also showed a significant improvement in the moods of patients when they worked in environments with music, and the number of cases of burnouts were also reduced (Lim et al., 2010, 251-258). The practicality of this intervention is evident in the numerous models that have been created for stress that attribute the condition as a poor interaction between an individual and his environment (Quinal, 2009). As mentioned above, the majority of all stress factors have an external etiology and alleviating these factors by improving the environment is likely to also reduce the number of stress cases. In fact, if the cycle of interaction between poor environmental conditions and an individual is improved, an individual is able to cope with other stress factors as his threshold for these conditions is increased, as in this example by the music (Rice, 2011). In addition, researchers have stated that all stress factors can be alleviated depending on the individual's ability to cope with the matter at hand. Improving an individual's mood through music in the wards will improve his or her judgment, which in turn will allow him to cope better with the conditions that he or she is exposed to. In summation, no conditions are innately stressful and there are ways in which individuals can be helped in dealing with environmental stressors (Lim et al., 2010, 251-258). In essence, the way in which an individuals deals with a stressful process can be divided into two stages, the primary stage or the cognitive stage of perception and the secondary stage which is the coping mechanism utilized by the individual for the stressor (Remmers et al., 2010, 11-16). Therefore, improving an individual's perception of a stressful situation enables him or her to utilize the appropriate coping strategy to ensure that the situation is not stressful for him or her (Quinal, 2009). The intervention mentioned below aims to reduce the levels of stress among medical staff by improving their working environment. In addition, the intervention that will be used is intended to improve the mood of the nurses to enable them to cope with the stress in their ward. The ward that will be focused on is that of cancer patients. Methodology Experimental Design The design of this study is a true experiment and aims to illustrate the influence of music on stress levels. The experiment will evaluate the staff members both before and after the experiment. There will be two groups, the experimental and control group, with the participants being randomly selected. The pre test group will be evaluated to determine the initial level of stress among the staff members before the intervention. This will enable the researchers to determine the level of improvements from the treatment and the analysis after the intervention will enable the researchers to make a comparison. Hence, the stress levels of the medical staff members are the dependent variable, whilst classical music is the independent variable. The participants in this experiment are the medical staff which are working in the cancer ward. Procedure The method of intervention in this experiment is the introduction of classical music into the cancer patient ward. The experiment will be carried out for a duration of one month. The medical staff in the cancer patient ward will be given three sessions of classical music therapy at the beginning of work, during their break and at the end of every work session (Wu et al., 2010, 627-634). These sessions will be approximately 45 minutes and the the first session will be a tutorial on how to use the music disks and the effects that the music will have. The aim for the music is to enable individuals to begin their work in a calm state of mind and to end their work in a status that enables them to get a good rest. The session in between their breaks enables them to maintain a calm state during their work. The assessment and evaluation of the process will be carried out in the form of a questionnaire. The questionnaire will be divided into three sections, one to determine the stressors present in the ward, the others to determine coping mechanisms before and after the intervention. The nature of these questionnaires is to determine the subjective perception of the individuals to stress and a conclusion will be created on the basis of the results obtained (Ulich et al., 2010, 627-634). Each of the staff members who will participate in the experiment will be informed of the outline and aims of the study. After this they will be informed of the steps to take in the experiment. There are also ethical issues that have to be considered in the experiment and confidentiality should be maintained. The experiment should be voluntary and the researchers should ensure that they don not pressurize the participants for answers (Ulich et al., 2010, 627-634). In addition, participants should have the possibility to withdraw at any moment of the study. The study should also not affect the participants in any negative way (Ulich et al., 2010, 627-634). References Applebaum, D., Fowler, S., Fiedler, N., Osinubi, O., & Robson, M. (2010). The impact of environmental factors on nursing stress, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. Journal of Nursing Administration, 40(7/8), 323-328. Burgess, L., Irvine, F., & Wallymahmed, A. (2010). Personality, stress and coping in intensive care nurses: a descriptive exploratory study. Nursing in critical care,15(3), 129-140. Laranjeira, C. A. (2012). The effects of perceived stress and ways of coping in a sample of Portuguese health workers. Journal of clinical nursing, 21(11?12), 1755-1762. Lim, J., Bogossian, F., & Ahern, K. (2010). Stress and coping in Singaporean nurses: a literature review. Nursing & Health Sciences, 12(2), 251-258. Quinal, L., Harford, S., & Rutledge, D. N. (2009). Secondary traumatic stress in oncology staff. Cancer nursing, 32(4), E1-E7. Remmers, H., Holtgrawe, M., & Pinkert, C. (2010). Stress and nursing care needs of women with breast cancer during primary treatment: A qualitative study.European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 14(1), 11-16. Rice, V. H. (Ed.). (2011). Handbook of stress, coping, and health: Implications for nursing research, theory, and practice. SAGE Publications, Incorporated. Ulrich, C. M., Taylor, C., Soeken, K., O’Donnell, P., Farrar, A., Danis, M., & Grady, C. (2010). Everyday ethics: ethical issues and stress in nursing practice.Journal of advanced nursing, 66(11), 2510-2519. Wu, H., Chi, T. S., Chen, L., Wang, L., & Jin, Y. P. (2010). Occupational stress among hospital nurses: cross?sectional survey. Journal of Advanced Nursing,66(3), 627-634. Xianyu, Y., & Lambert, V. A. (2006). Investigation of the relationships among workplace stressors, ways of coping, and the mental health of Chinese head nurses. Nursing & health sciences, 8(3), 147-155. Read More