Chair: TUCKER, SUSAN
DAI-B 58/03, p. 1190, Sep 1997

Stress in the workplace can be extremely detrimental. It has been estimated that stress related outcomes cost organizations 50 to 75 billion dollars a year (Ray & Miller, 1994). These costs are realized in the form of decreased productivity, increased absenteeism, and increased job turnover. Excessive stress in the health care professional can lead to burnout. Burnout was defined as a loss of concern for the people with whom one is working, including physical exhaustion and characterized by an emotional exhaustion in which the professional no longer has any positive feelings, sympathy or respect for clients or patients. A person suffering from burnout may exhibit adverse physiological, psychological, and behavioral symptoms. A major purpose of this study was to compare and contrast stress levels between practicing and training nurse anesthetists. The study also sought to ascertain the effects of stress and style of relating to others on the communication of nurse anesthetists. Sixty-six student nurse anesthetists and 15 practicing nurse anesthetists participated in the study for a total of 81 subjects. Thirty first year students, 22 second year students, and 14 third year students composed the student group. All subjects were administered the Occupational Stress Inventory, the Strength Deployment Inventory, and the Interpersonal Communication Inventory. Significant findings included: (1) second year students experienced the greatest amount of stress, (2) practicing nurse anesthetists have more coping resources than student nurse anesthetists, (3) the Altruistic/Nurturing and the Analytic/Autonomizing are the styles of relating to others used most often by student and practicing nurse anesthetists, (4) experience and GPA do not necessarily improve coping resources, (5) nurse anesthetists with high stress levels communicated less effectively than nurse anesthetists with low stress levels, (6) role boundary was a significant stressor for nurse anesthetists, (7) nurse anesthetists communicated less effectively when using the Altruistic/Nurturing style compared to the Analytic/Autonomizing style, and (8) stress management has not become essential subject matter in the training curriculum for student nurse anesthetists.