Personal biography and stress in mental health nursing

When asked mental health nurses consistently report
relatively high levels of occupational stress. These
levels of occupational stress are seen as affecting
staff retention and also as creating a barrier to
the ongoing programme of improvement in mental
health care. Research suggests that the 'critical
factors' in nurses' ability to cope with
occupational stress are the personality variables
that are considered to have consistency over the
individual's biographical history and which are
commonly described as dispositions or traits.
Previous research has argued that the limits
implicit in the dominant approach to studying this
area (self-report questionnaires) are now
restricting understanding of these personality
variables and there has been repeated calls for
studies to use more sophisticated methods. This
study has used a specific method of biographical
interviewing to explore the experiences of stress of
nurses in two contrasting settings: an acute ward
anda therapeutic community, to explore how personal
biography impacts upon the experience of ccupational
stress for these two groups.