Abstract
The Canadian Healthcare System is entangled in a polycrisis of interconnected dimensions – staffing shortages, staff burnout, insufficient staff supports, budget/funding shortages, insufficient elderly care options, and others. The deepening polycrisis has unprecedented implications for frontline nurses’ (FNs) health and well-being and the clinical care they provide. Our objectives were to understand the current state of FNs’ health and well-being, their perceptions of the contributing factors, and the impacts on their quality of clinical care and work life. As nurses are the backbone of healthcare (nursing science), the study’s findings will assist health and continuing care leaders (health management, organizational science) in prioritizing a culture and climate of health and well-being (occupational health) that fosters self-care, provides organizational supports, and redesigns services models in acute care and long-term care (LTC) (organizational design). Thereby, disrupting the cascading effects of the polycrisis (multidisciplinary framework). Our mixed-methods design (semi-structured interviews and cross-sectional survey) collected responses from nurses working in acute care, emergency, and LTC. Our analysis strategies included thematic analysis with deductive coding of the interview data and testing various associations between constructs derived from the survey data. Nurses reported the polycrisis dimensions - chronic budget cuts, staffing shortages, work-demands, shift patterns, and lack of organizational supports - affected their health and well-being. Furthermore, nurses linked the effects of their health and well-being to compromised clinical care and reduced quality of work life. Caring for and serving nurses better should lead to workforce sustainability, reduced staff shortages, and improved care for elderly patients.
Presenters
Helen KelleyAssociate Dean and Associate Professor Emerita, Policy and Strategy, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—Aging, Intergenerational Solidarity and the Polycrisis
KEYWORDS
Nurses' Health and Well-being, Healthcare Polycrisis, Quality of Clinical Care
