Abstract

FERREIRA, Maria Margarida  and  FERREIRA, Carlos. Mental load and psychic load in nurses. Revista Portuguesa de Enfermagem de Saúde Mental [online]. 2014, n.spe1, pp.47-52. ISSN 1647-2160.

Nurses are exposed in their daily work to a large number of factors that contributes to mental and psychic workload, some of those are inherent to their nursing work and others are clearly related to the organization of work. Mental and psychic workloads are frequently associated and may lead to situations of stress at work. Sometimes the professionals have no conscience about the fact that they are living a negative stress situation, however it’s a frequent reality and the consequences are often ignored and even neglected. This work was based on a research made through a cross-sectional study, by questionnaire, in a random sample of 235 nurses, which 103 of them are from a Oncology Institute and 132 from a Portuguese Hospital Centre. The results indicates a high level of mental workload in 59,5% of the nurses and an average level of psychic workload in 67,0% of the nurses in both institutions. The levels of mental workload have focused mostly in age group of 20-30 years old and the nurses with ages between 20 and 40 years old show an increased risk of psychic workload. The schedule shifts of 35 hours per week and the accumulating work increases the risk of mental and psychic workload. It is essential to promote some preventive measures to contribute to the quality of life of nurses and thus improve their performance and reduce the rates of mental load and psychological burden related to labor activity.

Keywords : Mental workload; Psychic Workload; Professional stress; Signs of stress.

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