Stress in Health Professionals

Stress levels in health professionals have been shown to be high inmany countries and in most staff groups. This creates a personalcost to the individuals concerned, a financial cost to theorganisations in terms of absence, early retirement and complaints,and a health cost to patients in terms of the risk of poorerquality care that is received by patients from stressed ordissatisfied staff. At a time when health organisations worldwideare striving to reduce costs and to increase quality, addressingthe psychological well-being of their staff has necessarily risenhigh on their priorities. Stress in Health Professionals reports onthe latest research from around the world on the causes of stressin health professionals and on ways to intervene to reduce stresslevels. In doing this, it takes approaches from organisational andclinical psychology to focus on key staff groups. It considerswider issues such as burn-out, teamwork, training and counsellingservices and investigates the effectiveness of both organisationaland individual interventions. Written by experts from a broad rangeof areas, the chapters include:
* the latest evidence on the levels and sources of stress in healthstaff
* links between stress and patient care Individual differences inthe 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, healthprofessionals, trainers and health organisations, and also forthose involved in research in this important area of individual andorganisational well being.

"The book can be recommended as a resource for health providers,managers researchers involved in the field of work stress..."International Journal of Adolescent Medicine Health

"This is an excellent book to have in your library and many of thechapters should be required reading for professional, strategic andoperational line managers concerned with designing effective workenvironments." Clinical Child Psychology & Psychiatry ISSUES IN STUDYING STRESS.

Stress at Work: A Conceptual Framework (R. Payne).

Burnout (W. Schaufeli).

Individual Differences in the Job Stress Process of Health CareProfessionals (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 CareProfessionals (L. Murphy).

Stress and Interventions for Stress in General Practitioners (J.Howie & M. Porter).

Stress in the Nursing Department: Learnings from an Executive TeamRetreat (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.

"... this is an excellent book to have in your library and many of the chapters should be required reading for professional, strategic and operational line managers concerned with designing effective work environments." (Clinical Child Psychology & Psychiatry, January 2001

"The book can be recommended as a resource for health providers, managers researchers involved in the field of work stress...." (International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, Vol 12, 2000)

Jenny Firth-Cozens is an occupational and clinical psychologist and Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology who has worked at all levels of the health service and within academia. She has published numerous reports and several books, both academic and popular, including Stress in Health Professionals: Psychological and organizational causes and interventions and Nervous Breakdown: What is it? What causes it? Who will help?, which was a book club choice for many years. In addition she has contributed articles to most leading newspapers and magazines and for 10 years was agony aunt for Good Housekeeping and The Yorkshire Post.

Roy L. Payne graduated in psychology at Liverpool University and has spent most of his career as a researcher and teacher in business schools and psychology departments in the UK. He is currently Professor of Organizational Psychology at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia. His work has led to publications in major international journals on organizational structure and climate/culture, and he has also published extensively in the occupational stress area. These remain active areas of interest, as well as more recent work on trust in organizations. 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.