A recent survey has found that the stress factor in the nurses’ job harms their sex life.
Roughly half of the nurses believe that their sex lives are harmed by the emotional stress of their job, according to the Nursing Times magazine poll.The magazine surveyed almost 2,000 nurses, and found that 70 percent said they experienced from physical or mental health problems linked to work-related stress.
Some 44 percent said that their sex life was in distress, and a quarter said they had started drinking more.
The poll also found that one in 10 nurses was smoking more, and almost a third reported taking off more days sick than usual.
Nursing Times held the pressure of financial deficits and the threat of job cuts in the NHS responsible for the nurses’ woes.
"Nurses are under pressure, under valued and under paid. Stress is a serious issue for nurses who run the daily gamut of violence and abuse from patients and relatives, as well as coping with the day-to-day pressures of having to do ever more with fewer resources because of deficit-led cost cutting,” the BBC quoted Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, as saying.
"When you add to that worries about job security and a pay cut, it comes as no surprise that stress levels are affecting nurses' personal lives and relationships,” he added.
Apart from mental and emotional stress, the nurses also faced physical assault at workplace.
A RCN poll last year found that more than a quarter of nurses surveyed had been physically attacked at work, while nearly half had been intimidated or harassed by a manager.
"We need to tackle these issues if we are to keep nurses in the profession, while at the same time attracting new recruits so they can continue to deliver high quality patient care,” Dr. Carter said.
Steve Barnett, director of NHS Employers, said that the brunt of stress on NHS employees was "vastly under-estimated".
He said that work-related stress was to blame for 30 percent of sickness absence in the NHS - and cost the service 300-400million pounds a year.
However, Barnett added that NHS Employers had launched a drive to battle stress, which seemed to be having an effect.
Source: ANI
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