College of Nursing and Professional Disciplines, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, USA.
J Psychiatr Ment Health Nurs. 2024 Feb;31(1):111-116. doi: 10.1111/jpm.12962. Epub 2023 Aug 10.
WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Anxiety is common in women, nurses and nurse educators and can negatively impact overall mental well-being and work-life satisfaction. Anxiety increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hope is a personal resource that can be employed to help cope with anxiety. Professional identity, 'our why', is important to recognize and revisit as a way to add value to daily work in anxious times. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: Compassion fatigue has contributed to burnout and turnover of nurses and nursing faculty. Knowing our 'why' helps understand the motivation in our work. Using hope as a personal resource, and sharing my lived experience, could be useful to other nursing faculty struggling with anxiety. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR MENTAL HEALTH NURSING?: There is a need for mental health resources within healthcare and education systems to support nurses and nurse educators not only during the COVID-19 pandemic but through future healthcare crises. Support programmes and interventions need to be developed to sustain and retain both nurses and nursing faculty.
BACKGROUND: Providing patient care and nurse education in today's healthcare environment is high-stress, often resulting in high-anxiety among both nurses and nurse educators. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nurse faculty is largely unexplored.
The aim was to share the experience of living and work working with anxiety in the nurse faculty role during the COVID-19 pandemic.
MATERIALS & METHODS: This is a lived experience narrative of one nurse faculty member.
Through daily purposeful self-motivation and reflection, yoga, and brief outdoor respites, the author was able to strengthen professional identity, to see value in her work and to activate the personal resource of hope (Nursing Management, 52, 2021, 56; Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 93, 2020, 187).
'Nursing faculty are essential to the profession' and likely experienced 'emotional exhaustion' during the pandemic (Nursing Education Perspectives, 42, 2021, 8) in their efforts to buoy students. It needs to be acknowledged that nursing faculty can experience anxiety, secondary trauma (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17, 2020, 8358) and compassion fatigue, through listening to students' experiences and offering reinforcement during chaotic times.
Little is known about what nursing faculty experienced as they attempted to support students (Nursing Education Perspectives, 42, 2021, 285). It is hoped that by sharing this lived experience, nurses and nurse faculty will understand how employing hope as a personal resource and re-engaging with their professional identity will help them cope with the significant stresses that future healthcare pandemics or disasters may bring.
分享在 COVID-19 大流行期间，作为一名护士教师，在工作中应对焦虑的生活经历。
这是一位护士教师的生活经历叙述。
通过日常有目的的自我激励和反思、瑜伽以及短暂的户外休息，作者能够增强职业认同感，看到工作的价值，并激活希望这一个人资源（《护理管理》，52，2021，56；《职业与组织心理学杂志》，93，2020，187）。
“护理教师对专业至关重要”，并且可能在大流行期间经历了“情绪疲惫”（《护理教育观点》，42，2021，8），因为他们努力支持学生。需要认识到，护理教师在聆听学生的经历并在混乱时期提供支持时，可能会经历焦虑、二次创伤（《国际环境研究与公共卫生杂志》，17，2020，8358）和同情心疲劳。
关于护理教师在试图支持学生时的经历，我们知之甚少（《护理教育观点》，42，2021，285）。希望通过分享这段生活经历，护士和护理教师能够理解如何将希望作为个人资源，并重新参与到他们的职业认同中，这将有助于他们应对未来医疗保健大流行或灾难带来的巨大压力。
