Emergency nurses face immense stress in
their daily work, as they care for patients during highly critical situations
when lives are often at risk. Constant high stress over prolonged periods of
time without adequate coping mechanisms or relief can lead to burnout. Burnout
has been shown to contribute to job turnover in the nursing field, with its
associated costs of losing experienced staff and requiring extensive retraining
of replacements. Moreover, when nurses are under high chronic stress, it can negatively
impact the quality of care they provide to patients (Andersen et al., 2021).
This presents a problem for both hospitals needing to retain experienced staff
and patients deserving high quality care even in emergency settings. Existing
resilience programs tend to require time commitments outside of busy work
shifts that emergency nurses cannot spare. Therefore, this Pilot aims to
develop and test the effectiveness of brief, evidenced-based resilience
building interventions that can be easily implemented during work hours without
disrupting patient care duties (Dryden, 2022). Deep breathing, aromatherapy, and
adult coloring have been explored in the literature in relation to compassion satisfaction and addressing burnout , campassion fatigue and secondary trauma stress
in nursing.
Implementing such interventions
during work hours not only aligns with the practical constraints faced by
emergency nurses but also acknowledges the urgency of providing them with tools
to manage stress in real-time. By offering accessible and efficient coping
strategies, this pilot aspires to enhance the well-being of emergency nurses,
mitigate burnout, and ultimately improve the quality of care delivered to
patients in critical situations (Del Mar Molero Jurado et al.,
2019).