Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Corso di laurea in infermieristica - Sede di Modena

Abstract

The home care nurse in his work environment is constantly subjected to the severe emotional stress created by the continuous contact with suffering people, and especially with individuals suffering from terminal illness.
Because of the countless stressors and the natural emotional involvement that exist in this care relationship, it may happen that the professional’s psychic equilibrium is somehow compromised, sometimes dragging the nurse into a real state of psychological stress and, in the worst case, in a state of complete "loss of self”: the burnout.
It often happens that, in front of the sense of impotence and fear experimented when assisting a terminally ill patient, the nurse tries to hide himself behind something of well-known capable to give him a sense of security. In this case the nurse tries to limit his work to always more technical, and sometimes unnecessary, functions, trying in vain to get emotionally involved as little as possible.
Of course this is not the proper way to deal with such situations, and, to avoid this, is essential for the professional to use some strategies able to allow him to better deal with stress and to limit its negative effects: the coping strategies.
It is the nurse’s responsibility to adopt the most functional strategies for him, in order to be able to assist the terminally ill patients in the most effective and correct way, but especially to safeguard his own serenity both at work and in private life.
The first step, in this way, is to recognize his difficulties and to deal with them, without trying to escape. It is therefore necessary, for those that care, to acquire a good level of emotional competence, especially to himself. This can, in particular, be reached through training, which is the main instrument for the enrichment and growth of the individual as an entity.