An investigation into stress and coaching needs of staff working in the hospice service

Abstract

Stress has been identified as the second highest cause of sickness absence in the NHS. Hospice staff could be particularly at risk of experiencing stress, as working with patients with terminal illnesses threatens the sense of omnipotence and brings a repeated need to deal with feelings of loss and grief. Disagreement exists as to whether the work of palliative care nurses is more stressful than the work of other nurses and the literature on specific palliative care stressors is sparse. This research aims to obtain a better understanding of the overall levels of stress and the causes of stress amongst this staff group. A further aim is to run a brief stress-coaching intervention in two hospices and evaluate its suitability and effectiveness for this service using an evaluation questionnaire. This paper presents a review of the literature and an outline of the proposed methodology for this study.