Overview and Summary: Healthy Nurses: Perspectives on Caring for Ourselves.

Abstract

Every few years this joke goes around, “Did you hear about the body found alongside the road? They don’t know her name but they know she is a nurse because the back was broken, the ankles were swollen, the nerves were frayed, and the bladder was full.” While most laugh when they hear it, the sad reality is nurses “accept” health problems that come from the physical and emotional demands of the profession, and while caring for others often do not care for themselves. A synthesis of 187 international studies on nurse health conducted by Fronteira and Ferrinho (2011) found that nurses experience more musculoskeletal disorders, are at greater risk of acquiring tuberculosis and blood-borne pathogen infections, and have more occupational allergies than the general public.In one study, hospital-employed bedside nurses were found to have a depression rate of 17% compared to the national rate of only 9% (Letvak, Ruhm & McCoy, 2012).