The job makes many nurses sick

Tales of over-worked and stressed nurses abound in just about every developed country but now a new Canadian study has taken what until now has been hearsay to a factual, statistical level.

A study by Statistics Canada says the job is actually making nurses sick.

The study surveyed nearly 19,000 nurses between October 2005 and January 2006, including registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and registered psychiatric nurses and found that around 10 per cent were injured on the job in the previous year.

The injuries included being stuck by needles and physically assaulted by patients and thirty seven per cent experienced pain severe enough to prevent them from carrying out their normal daily activities.

The survey also found that three-quarters of them blamed job factors such as work stress, low autonomy and lack of respect, for health problems among nurses.

The study found stress and strain associated with the job was strongly related to fair or poor physical and mental health.

The survey found that many of the country's 314,900 nurses were expected to work regular overtime and as many as fifty percent of nurses did an average of four hours a week in unpaid overtime, and many had more than one job.

The study which was by Health Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Information, also found that nurses were more likely to report higher stress levels at work than people in the general work force.

The researchers defined work stress as occurring when job responsibilities outpaced a worker's ability to decide how to perform the tasks required of them.

The statistics agency said as many as 31 per cent of female nurses were classified as having high job strain while the figure for all employed women was 26 per cent.

Nurses were also more likely to report depression than people in the general work force.

The study which examined links between nurses' work environment and health found that nurses face a broad range of physical and emotional challenges in a demanding, hectic workplace and which is taking a toll on their own well-being.

Almost three in 10 nurses who provide direct care said a patient had physically assaulted them in the previous year, and even more reported emotional abuse from a patient.