July 14, 2000
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THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA July 14, 2000 |
 by Patty PittsStress stalks nurses long before they begin working in the province’s hospitals. Tension and pressure are also the frequent companions of nursing students — an American study of stress among health care professions ranked them at the top. That study was one of many that Dr. Lynne Young, an assistant professor with UVic’s school of nursing on the Lower Mainland, and nursing students reviewed after an instructor noted that the stress level seemed especially high in her class. “We were amazed, when we got into the research literature, at the high level of stress reported among nursing students. But we only found two examples of stress reduction intervention programs for student nurses reported in the literature,” says Young. Her inquiries led to discussions with the Healing Touch Centre of the Vancouver Hospital Health and Science Centre. Nurses there wanted to evaluate the effectiveness of its mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program. Young wanted a program to help her stressed-out students. An agreement was reached. The centre would waive its usual program fee for the third-year students in exchange for an evaluation conducted by fourth-year students. Students were given credit for the time spent at the eight weekly sessions. They learned meditation, yoga and relaxation techniques and wrote a journal as part of the program. The results were very positive and the MBSR program offer was extended to a second group of nursing students last fall. Young reported on the program’s effectiveness at the International Conference on Women, Heart Disease and Stroke held earlier this year in Victoria and she hopes to expand her research on stress-reduction among nursing students. Young’s interest in the wellness of nursing students has its roots in her overall research in health promotion. After earning her PhD at UBC, she joined UVic’s Lower Mainland faculty in 1997 and has continually investigated the underlying issues affecting health and health care delivery. She’s currently the only nurse and the only individual from B.C. who’s a post-doctoral fellow at Seattle’s University of Washington school of nursing, where she’s conducting research into the risk for heart disease among low-income single women. Her primary research into the influence that family members have on individuals’ health-related decisions and experiences prompted a detour into the gender issues associated with cardio-vascular disease and heart transplantation. After witnessing the complexity of issues related to family-focused care while attending rounds of the heart transplant care team, she learned the vast majority of B.C. heart transplant recipients were men, with women (usually wives) providing post-operative care at home. A shortage of gender-specific large scale data has stymied further investigation. “Often science is conducted on men and then related to women” says Young. “When researchers don’t report on the outcomes of women, it sets things in motion where maybe men may be getting more transplants because we don’t have sufficient scientific information on women to support practice. “What’s central and easy to lose is that women’s care-giving work is usually invisible. Often decisions are made on the basis that a woman will care for a post-operative man, sometimes to the detriment of her own health.” When that similar dynamic affects the nurses who are caring for the patients, both parties are put at excessive risk. Thanks to Young’s interest in reducing stress among nursing students, more graduates of the school will have the skills to handle the inevitable pressures they’ll face when they become part of the health care system. |