Nurses’ experience of occupational stress and factors which contribute to occupational stress : a literature review

Background: Long-term stress can lead to reduced health among nurses which can result in impaired quality of care. Stress in nurses' work needs to be studied in order to prevent stress and impaired quality of care. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe nurses' experience of occupational stress and factors that contribute to occupational stress. Method: The method used was a literature review. Results: The analysis resulted in five themes which describe nurses' experiences of occupational stress and factors that contribute to occupational stress. These themes are; The nursing profession's change, Experience and education, High workload, Organization and work environment and Practical nursing. The result in this study shows that the strongest factors contributing to occupational stress in the nursing profession was; administrative work, objectification of patients, nurses' work experience and level of education, understaffing, high workload, time pressure, lack of support from management, cost savings, patient safety and palliative care. The nurses' experienced that their profession is changing and that the management does not appreciate or listen to them. Nurses' experienced feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness when they could not give patients good care because of occupational stress. They were afraid to hurt patients because of the stressful work environment. Conclusion: This study gives a deeper understanding of how nurses experience occupational stress and found several factors contributing to occupational stress. These findings can be used by health management and others to prevent occupational stress for nurses