The aim was to describe surgical nurses’ perceived work-related stress in care of severely ill and dying patients after participating in an educational intervention on existential issues supervised by a clinical social worker.
The concurrent data collections in this mixed methods study consisted of repeated interviews and questionnaires distributed on four occasions.
Directly after the educational intervention, the nurses described working under high time pressure. They described being hindered in caring because of discrepancies between their caring intentions and what was possible in the surgical care context. Six months later, the nurses described a change in decision making, and a shift in the caring to make it more in line with their own intentions and patients’ needs rather than the organizational structure. At the same time they reported decreased feelings of work-related stress, decreased stress associated with work-load and feeling less disappointed at work.
Results indicate that it may be possible to influence nurses’ work-related stress through an educational intervention. Reflection on ways of caring for severely ill and dying patients, from an existential perspective, had contributed to nurses’ enhanced independent decision-making in caring. This in turn appears to have decreased their feelings of work-related stress and disappointment at work.