Professional stress and educational training in nursing homes during Covid 19 pandemic in Zagreb

BACKGROUND: Nursing in nursing homes is considered to be one of the most stressful professions. Additional problems during the Covid 19 pandemic were working in long shifts with highly infectious patients, high mortality, insufficient education and shortage of stuff, work under epidemiological measures. Such situation can be extra stressful and affect nurses health. OBJECTIVES: During 2020-2022 we did quantitative and qualitative study on sources of work stress and professional burnout. Also we did educational training for nurses. The aim of the research and interventions is acquiring skills to cope with stress, communication skills with different personalities through specific workshops and intervision/ supervision work with nurses implementing by experts: a public health specialist, an epidemiologist, a psychiatrist, a social worker and a nurse. The long-term goals are the protection of nurses health and improvement of care for users. RESULTS: Quantitative research was conducted on 135 nurses by validated questionnaires in 12 nursing homes in Zagreb. It was found examined sources of stress are directly related to burnout and also a high degree of emotional exhaustion (62,3%). Basic groups of stress sources were lack of superiors suport, communications problems, excessive work load, unrealistic expectations. High degree of professional burnout was 6%. Also basic topics of a qualitative research were defined. Workshops on coping with stress and communication skills, intervision methodology and supervision interventions were held for representatives of nurses from all nursing homes. Interested nurses attended an 8-week mindfulness course. CONCLUSIONS: Through research and implementation of the intervention it has been shown that there is a great need for interventions in protecting health of staff in nursing homes in crisis situations. KEY MESSAGES: • Employees who provide health and social care need continuous support in the protection of their mental health, as well as additional support interventions in crisis situations. • Preserving the health of health and social workers improves the quality of care within the health and social system.