Associations of occupational stress, workplace violence and organizational support on chronic fatigue symptoms among nurses, 2020, Li et al

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
Aims

Chronic fatigue syndrome is an agnogenic disease worldwide. Nurses are at a high risk of chronic fatigue syndrome. However, no research has been done to examine the associations of workplace violence, organizational support and occupational stress with chronic fatigue syndrome among Chinese nurses. This study aimed to examine effects of these factors on chronic fatigue syndrome in this occupational group.

Desine
Cross‐sectional. All participants voluntarily completed a questionnaire survey.

Methods
The study was conducted in Liaoning province from December 2017 to January 2018. Self‐administered questionnaires were distributed to 1200 nurses, including Effort‐Reward‐Imbalance, Workplace Violence Scale, Survey of Perceived Organizational Support, together with age, gender, marital status, education levels, physical activities, job rank, monthly income and weekly working hours. Complete responses were obtained from 1080 (90%) participants. Chronic fatigue syndrome was diagnosed by doctors according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention criteria. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to examine these independent risk factors.

Results
The prevalence of chronic fatigue syndrome was 6.76%. The results of logistic regression analysis showed that nurses who experienced serious higher levels of overcommitment, workplace violence and less organizational support were more likely to be classified as chronic fatigue syndrome.

Conclusion
There was a high prevelence of chronic fatigue syndrome. Lower workplace violence, more organizational support and lower overcommitment could be effective resources for reducing chronic fatigue syndrome.

Impact
Workplace violence, organizational support and occupational stress were related to chronic fatigue syndrome, which helped to explain why Chinese nurses suffered higher prevelance of chronic fatigue syndrome. Overcommitment explained chronic fatigue syndrome better than Effort/Reward Ratio, so intrinsic stress played a more critical role than extrinsic stress in chronic fatigue syndrome. Chinese nurses suffered serious sleep disorders and impairment of concentration and memory. These symptoms might also atributed to serious occupational stress, unsafe and unsupportive working environment. Creating a safe and supportive working emvironment, releiving intrinsic occupational stress should be considered as an institutional strategy to early prevent chronic fatigue syndrome.
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Paywall, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jan.14312
Not available via Sci hub at time of posting.
 
nurses who experienced serious higher levels of overcommitment, workplace violence and less organizational support were more likely to be classified as chronic fatigue syndrome.
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I've just read the abstract, but from that it sounds to me like those nurses were "frontline" staff. A&E, walk-in clincs, that type of thing.

This means they will be in close proximity to a higher number of people throughout the day and will spend their working day in a work area that has a high volume of foot traffic through it.

So, is it not possible that these nurses are exposed more frequently to a greater number of infectious sources? Not only patients themselves, but also doorknobs, cubicle curtains etc.

But yeah, let's just focus on the stress.....
 
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I am not familiar with these questionnaires. But with ME/CFS one can be less well able to deal with stress of lots of types. So it seems possible people with ME/CFS might rate differently the same scenarios compared to a healthy person who might be better able to brush off and/or forget about some challenging situations.
 
Dolphin said:
I am not familiar with these questionnaires. But with ME/CFS one can be less well able to deal with stress of lots of types. So it seems possible people with ME/CFS might rate differently the same scenarios compared to a healthy person who might be better able to brush off and/or forget about some challenging situations.
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I agree, but I also wonder how much is down to stress and how much is down to having ME.

For example, it takes much more energy for me to accomplish a task on a bad and on a good (or less bad!) day. It takes much more energy than it would have taken me when well.

Then we have the double whammy of not recovering as quickly from the energy expenditure.

I find when I am in PEM, my cognition is badly affected and that compounds matters, making jobs harder so they take longer.

Once I hit PEM, I get into a state where I cannot rest. I can lie down but I can't quiet my brain. I'm not worried about anything in particular, it's just my brain is acting like an over tired toddler on a sugar high.

Then I get frustrated.

This looked like an inability to handle stress, or I accepted it as such, when I was first ill. With experience behind me, I think it's less about stress and more about chronic PEM.

There is an element of stress but for me it's not so much about the stresses of daily life, as trying to make the body and brain work normally. Trying to function without knowing about or understanding PEM.
 
Invisible Woman said:
I agree, but I also wonder how much is down to stress and how much is down to having ME.

For example, it takes much more energy for me to accomplish a task on a bad and on a good (or less bad!) day. It takes much more energy than it would have taken me when well.

Then we have the double whammy of not recovering as quickly from the energy expenditure.

I find when I am in PEM, my cognition is badly affected and that compounds matters, making jobs harder so they take longer.

Once I hit PEM, I get into a state where I cannot rest. I can lie down but I can't quiet my brain. I'm not worried about anything in particular, it's just my brain is acting like an over tired toddler on a sugar high.

Then I get frustrated.

This looked like an inability to handle stress, or I accepted it as such, when I was first ill. With experience behind me, I think it's less about stress and more about chronic PEM.

There is an element of stress but for me it's not so much about the stresses of daily life, as trying to make the body and brain work normally. Trying to function without knowing about or understanding PEM.
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Yes, good points. But my basic point was that somebody with ME/CFS could rate as more difficult on average what happened, compared to a healthy person. So one should be sceptical of claims that the people with ME/CFS had dealt with on average more challenging situations in the workplace.
 
ukxmrv said:
I'm wondering if workplace bullying by other staff could play a part in any of this? Vulnerable staff being placed into worse conditions regarding shifts or given roles to force them out.
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I know people, in the UK health service in particular, who had this happen. A pharmacist friend in particular. She worked in a hospital pharmacy. When she was first diagnosed they were supportive for about a month. Then people complained about favouritism and suddenly she was being out on shifts that they knew were very difficult for her. She had to quit in the end.
 
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