The importance of mental health in healthcare organizations
Discuss about the Mental Health Promotion for Organizational Structure.
The health care industry is constantly in a state of turmoil by subjecting health care workers to work for prolong hours and under poor organizational culture. It is important to adopt measures in order to promote mental health in a healthcare organization pertaining to workplace bullying and poor organizational structure that makes the professionals extremely irritated and leads to a development of aversion towards their job role. A profession in medicine have been considered to be the most novel profession all over the world, however it must be noted that globally the medical professionals have complained against poor organizational structure and excessive work load (AbuAlRub,2014). In context of the case study, nurses in general are loaded with familial responsibilities and at the same time are exposed to work place bullying by their superior boss who openly practice unprofessional behaviour towards them by developing a hostile attitude towards them which in itself is so evident that the professionals can feel the cold vibes which slows down their professional progress.
Research studies reveal that, a hostile attitude maintained by the superiors towards the sub-ordinates leads to creation of mental stress that is accountable for degrading the performance output of an employee by as much as 25% (Baicker et al.,2013). Hostile behaviour can be of many types, it can either be an adoption of a partial behaviour by the superior to other candidates or constantly humiliating an employee for minute faults (Barry et al.,2013). It is important to consider the fact that an employee has a background which is most of the times unknown to the superior and a supervisor is appointed to monitor the working and the progress of the employee, and encourage learning throughout. In case of finding faults, it is the foremost role of the supervisor to guide the employee and not put up a holistic approach towards the employee that would make it insulting and depressing for him, so much so that the employee might just walk away, not wanting to work in the organization any more (Bolier et al.,2014). This problem also highlights the high number of employee turnover in the nursing profession.
In order to deal with the severity of the situation, nurses can possibly resort to two approaches, the first being filing a complaint to the higher authorities about the constant bullying at the work place and the inappropriate behaviour being put up by superiors against them. Lodging a complaint would provide the nurses under stress with a certain proportion of relief that they have not tolerated but protested against something wrong that was constantly happening to them and in hope of a strict action they would have been able to maintain a positive and an optimistic approach towards work life (Czabala et al.,2014). Scientific studies reveal that individuals who silently choose to suffer and do not raise a voice against something wrong that has been happening to them, often end up pouring all the frustration out on their loved ones, thereby hampering the relationship with their family members (Goetzel,2014).
Negative impact of workplace bullying and poor organizational structure
To maintain a decent level of existence is the crucial struggle that every individual has been striving for. As a matter of fact, it is extremely difficult to sustain familial duties appropriately after being subjected to a huge amount of stress in the work place area. It is a common notion prevalent in the health care industry that the more shifts professionals work, the more monetary benefit they acquire in order to cater to the needs of the family, but in doing so, the nurses end up draining all his energy. Scientific studies reveal that excessive physical exertion often leads to fatigue and weakness which in turn ruins the feelings of happiness and positivity in a person (Lambert et al.,2014). At the same time, because of the massive workload, the workers are unable to spend quality time with their family members, only to sustain them and at this juncture if the family members end up misunderstanding the physical exhaustion to be negligence and end up having serious dispute then eventually the employer would feel even more demoralised. If there are children in the family, they feel neglected and start feeling that they are not being paid much attention to. These negative impressions about the professionals clouding the minds of their loved ones and the excessive work load and prolong hours of his shift make them all the more frustrated and depressed which if not checked would gradually lead to entering the initial phase of depression and anxiety.
In order to combat the scenario associated with work load, the nurses can proceed with the adoption of an intervention that would involve requesting the superior of the health care organization to understand his health status and accordingly allot them shift-timings. Another important intervention that could help in dealing with the professional pressure could be the family’s total support. It is important to understand that when a person is already frustrated with something, he seeks total acceptance and love from the family members in order to gather support that would help in dealing with the stress going around (Noben et al.,2015). Hence, if the family members of the nursing care professional adopted a more understanding approach towards Tom and understood the problem and tried to analyse things according to the worker’s perspective and if the children did not judge the changed behaviour towards them and just believed that the unexpected change was temporary and would disappear in no time and tried to come to terms with the unexpected reaction for a short period of time, then the distressed employee could have felt much better and tried to pacify the persistant anxiety by adopting mitigating measures (Jenkins & Eliott,2014). In these scenario, taking up an activity that could help in channelizing all the frustration and anger into something productive can help immensely, however meditation or spiritual yoga must be avoided. This is because, meditation can only be practised with a mind clear of any negative thoughts and a in a peaceful environment (Robson et al.,2013). Neither of the factors are applicable in the case if the employees are highly perturbed, A distressed employee is too agitated to pacify his mind and the surrounding environment can be considered extremely toxic pertaining to the worrying, frustration and constant argument with the colleagues, superiors and family issues and in these circumstances, studies reveal that in order to pacify the disturbed mind set, workers often resort to sedatives to calm their worked up mind (Laschinger et al.,2013).
Interventions to combat mental stress in healthcare professionals
Therefore, it should be critically noted that mental health is extremely a pivotal asset of the body and steps should be taken to keep it in a good condition, especially for people who cater to taking care of other people (Tudor,2013). Disturbance, be it external or internal leads to the creation of immense mental stress and that is detrimental to the health of an individual. The health hazards associated with the profession of nursing can be listed as prolong work hours, poor organizational culture, inefficient pay and de-motivating supervisors (Verhaeghe et al.,2013). It is extremely important to be able to segregate between professional life and personal life and one should make sure that once home, the stress associated with professional atmosphere should not affect the personal life at home (Suzuki et al.,2014). Also, the organizational culture prevalent in the healthcare organizations should be improved with professionals not having to work for more than 3 shifts in a day and let them return home early so that they get to spend ample amount of time at home (Zeller & Levine,2013). Sedatives and tranquilisers in any form should not be encouraged for consumption, instead family outings or quality time with family members should be encouraged in order to keep the mind stress free (Robson et al.,2013). Occupational hazards can be considered to be complementary tokens that come with every profession and it is important to take care of the hazards so as to build a healthy over all well being (Noben et al.,2015). Healthcare organizations should employ professional counsellors who would take the responsibility to counsel any worker experiencing any form of stress related to the profession (Stubbs,2014).
In addition, taking up hobbies such as cooking would help in minimising the stress and also pave the way to the development of closer familial ties. Music therapy in terms of listening to soothing music, just before going off to sleep and reading stories to children and indulging in playing with them can help provide an immense amount of relief which would in turn lead to the development of a peaceful mind and a fit body (Dagget et al.,2016). In addition to all the above mentioned factors, it is important to incorporate a balanced proportionate diet comprising of vitamins, minerals and adequate protein and carbohydrate constituents that would help in being healthy and increase the stamina of the person to work efficiently without feeling fatigued or weak after work. Once in a while, the organizations could organise social gatherings and laugh clubs where the workers could bring their family members and attend the gatherings together so that a quality time is spent with the family along with creating happy memories.
The importance of work-life balance and taking up hobbies
References:
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