Synopses & Reviews
Stress levels in health professionals have been shown to be high in many countries and in most staff groups. This creates a personal cost to the individuals concerned, a financial cost to the organisations in terms of absence, early retirement and complaints, and a health cost to patients in terms of the risk of poorer quality care that is received by patients from stressed or dissatisfied staff. At a time when health organisations worldwide are striving to reduce costs and to increase quality, addressing the psychological well-being of their staff has necessarily risen high on their priorities. Stress in Health Professionals reports on the latest research from around the world on the causes of stress in health professionals and on ways to intervene to reduce stress levels. In doing this, it takes approaches from organisational and clinical psychology to focus on key staff groups. It considers wider issues such as burn-out, teamwork, training and counselling services and investigates the effectiveness of both organisational and individual interventions. Written by experts from a broad range of areas, the chapters include:
- the latest evidence on the levels and sources of stress in health staff.
- links between stress and patient care
- individual differences in the stress process
- ways to set up counselling services
- the importance of teamworking
- a strong focus on interventions and their evaluation
This volume is an important resource for managers, health professionals, trainers and health organisations, and also for those involved in research in this important area of individual and organisational well being.
Synopsis
This important book reports on the latest research from around the world on the causes of stress in health care professionals, as well as the latest intervention techniques for reducing stress levels among those professionals. It integrates approaches from organizational and clinical psychology, and develops intervention strategies for individuals and groups in all key health care provider categories, including hospital doctors, general practitioners, nurses, mental health professionals, EMTs, and others.
Table of Contents
ISSUES IN STUDYING STRESS.
Stress at Work: A Conceptual Framework (R. Payne).
Burnout (W. Schaufeli).
Individual Differences in the Job Stress Process of Health Care Professionals (P. Spector).
Psychological and Physiological Aspects of Stress (J. Herbert).
Fallibility, Uncertainty and the Impact of Mistakes and Litigation (C. Vincent).
THE PROFESSIONS AND THEIR STRESS.
The Psychological Problems of Doctors (J. Firth-Cozens).
Nursing (P. Baldwin).
Health Service Managers (C. Borrill & C. Haynes).
Stress in Ambulance Personnel (K. Young & C. Cooper).
Child Protection Workers (T. Cresswell & J. Firth-Cozens).
INTERVENTIONS FOR STRESS.
Organisational Interventions to Reduce Stress in Health Care Professionals (L. Murphy).
Stress and Interventions for Stress in General Practitioners (J. Howie & M. Porter).
Stress in the Nursing Department: Learnings from an Executive Team Retreat (L. Hirschhorn & L. May).
Sharing the Burden: Teamwork in Health Care Settings (A. Carter & M. West).
Getting Things Right for the Doctor in Training (F. Moss & E. Paice).
Doctors in Trouble (R. Hale & L. Hudson).
Setting Up a Workplace Counselling Service (T. Wykes & R. Whittington).
Psychotherapeutic Interventions for Work Stress (G. Hardy & M. Barkham).
Index.