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ABSTRACT
* STRESS IS A FACTOR that affects nurses on a daily basis and can result in nurses' absenteeism, hostility, and aggression, as well as reduced productivity and efficiency.
* ONE HOSPITAL in Northeast Florida conducted a quality improvement project with perioperative nurses to determine which of the work situations they encounter are perceived as most stressful and the frequency with which these situations occur.
* RESULTS FROM THE SURVEY showed that the majority of perioperative nurses found situations that fall into the category "crisis on the job" were the most stressful but occurred least frequently. Many interpersonal relationship factors were identified as stressful, and items in this category occurred frequently. AORN J 84 (October 2006) 607-614. © AORN, Inc, 2006.
Stress is a part of everyday life. Like anyone else, professional nurses are subject to personal and workrelated stressors; however, the nature of a nurse's job in a perioperative setting places him or her in what could be considered a uniquely stressful work environment. One definition of stress is
a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being.1(p4)
Patient care in the perioperative environment is dynamic by nature and depends on a nurse's clinical knowledge, judgment, and critical thinking. The surgical setting is one of the most potentially hazardous of all clinical environments and is subject to strict regulations, clinical practice guidelines, and standards of care to preserve patient safety.2 In addition, health care reform has affected nursing care and has resulted in increased workloads, higher patient acuity, staffing cutbacks, and job insecurity, all of which can add to nurses' stress as well as have a negative effect on patient safety.
At a Northeast Florida acute care hospital with 326 beds and 16 surgical suites, stressful situations that affect health and behavior occur daily. A newly hired perioperative manager noted that the staff members' stress levels in the hospital's perioperative area seemed unusually high, so she proposed investigating stress in this environment. A quality improvement (QI) team in the OR undertook a project to determine the extent to which nurses in the perioperative setting perceived their work as stressful and to determine which...