Stress in Health Professionals

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.