Why nurses don't want to talk to a ward psychologist?

Nurses General Nursing

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Hello,

Since I often seek and get good information at this forum I had an idea I can ask you for help with my current issue.

I am a psychologist working in a pediatric ICU. I am there mostly for parents and older children. But I am also supposed to be available for supporting staff with their professional or personal issues.

Head nurse asked me to prepare a talk about the importance of talking to someone and receiving help after a mistake while giving medications to a patient. This I can handle. I can talk about the importance of talk support or therapy. But I am having troubles with the other part which is the fact that nurses rarely seek psychological help or advice. Head nurse encouraged me to talk about reasons for that. I do have my explanations but I would be really happy to hear what you think about that.

So, to summarize: if you had an option to speak to a psychologist, working at your ward about your work or personal issues - would you do it? Why yes and why no?

Regards,

Manja

Specializes in retired LTC.

There are times when I have been among the many posters here to suggest to some OP that a talk with EAP or another counselor might be helpful to get over some distressing occurrence.

Perhaps I should have been clearer or prefaced my suggestion with a caveat that I was not advocating any thing deeply personal for which confidentiality would be highly expected and that any breach would be compromising for the employee.

"Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead" - Benjamin Franklin. I've quoted this truism before. As we know (and have made comment here), there is a reason military and law enforcement staff seek civilian/private practice counseling/assistance.

Some time ago, I was required to attend a MANDATORY staff meeting during my shift. It was to be a 'quality improvement/employee suggestion' program. that was being initiated by some new management. It was supposed to be confidential. But on the questionnaires, it was required that just your position would be recorded (under the premise that educational opp'ties were 'avail' to all shifts).Well, on my 11-7 we had `~9 CNAs, 3 LPNs and 1 RN (myself).

REALLY now! Do you think I would write anything suggesting improvement, much less anything disparaging. Hey! One time I put an 'anonymous" compliment into my facility's general community suggestion box - just a general blip of a compliment. I got a 'thank you' note waiting for me a couple days later.

Talk about anonymity! So NO to anything that would require confidentiality. Maybe some general 'vanilla' concern, but nothing serious.

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Hello,

Since I often seek and get good information at this forum I had an idea I can ask you for help with my current issue.

I am a psychologist working in a pediatric ICU. I am there mostly for parents and older children. But I am also supposed to be available for supporting staff with their professional or personal issues.

Head nurse asked me to prepare a talk about the importance of talking to someone and receiving help after a mistake while giving medications to a patient. This I can handle. I can talk about the importance of talk support or therapy. But I am having troubles with the other part which is the fact that nurses rarely seek psychological help or advice. Head nurse encouraged me to talk about reasons for that. I do have my explanations but I would be really happy to hear what you think about that.

So, to summarize: if you had an option to speak to a psychologist, working at your ward about your work or personal issues - would you do it? Why yes and why no?

Regards,

Manja

Huh? I have no idea what you are asking.

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Thanks everyone for answering and sharing your thoughts.

First, I do have to correct myself and say that what I meant was nurses rarely seek psychological help at work and not in general.

All the reasons you gave, the most common being fear of negative consequences after trusting to someone in the workplace are also the reasons I have in mind. And I can truly understand the mistrust although I still wish this wouldn't have to be the case. Stigma is real. That is for sure. Total confidence is something I take really seriously (as every psychological worker should).

As I said before I can understand nurses don't come for help regarding their personal issues. And I will definitely consider your opinion I should help with finding support in the community.

What I am more surprised (and sometimes even get frustrated) about is the fact that they rarely come for consultation about professional issues.

Let me explain the case. I work on this unit for 3 years now. There wasn't a psychologist before that. General atmosphere is that they hardly waited for a psychologist, everyone needs one, they are all happy to have one etc. Having this in mind I soon started offering consultations about dealing with parents, working with children in distress, talking about troubles at work, dealing with mistakes at work, enhancing communication skills, stress management etc. What happened was almost no one responded. We also tried group settings for mentioned topics, we ensured it was in their work time and nurses could pick which other members they want in their group. The result was the same.

The biggest irony I think is the fact that not even head nurse applied for the group. When I was talking to her about that she told me that nurses are afraid of me. Not me personally but of a psychologist. And as I said before I can understand this in the light of not wanting to share personal issues. But it is harder for me to realize what gets in the way of accepting work related support. After all they expressed the need in the first place. Regarding work related problems I do believe that the fact I know the environment they work in I can better understand and consult some issues.

Any thoughts about that? Is this something you think I rather stop trying to do? It is hard for me to accept that since I see nurses in distress, lot of young nurses leaving the ward, having troubles dealing with parents. I see so much I could do to help. Is there something that would stop you from consulting with mental health professional about work related issues?

Manja

If this were me, my reason for not going would simply be that it takes up time. 12 hour shifts as a nurse can be brutal. My time away from work is my time-it's time I physically and mentally need in order to refresh myself. I've also opted out of attending things during my shift because I don't like leaving my patients. I'm still a fairly new nurse, so I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but I hate when I have to leave the floor for an extended period of time (new grad training, in my case) and then come back and try to play catch up. I also usually have a ton of documentation to catch up on (as any nurse has), and it feels more productive to spend my down time” doing that.

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I know many would disagree with me, (which would make me happy, to be honest) but I think it's also a culture of the current workforce. I organize educational opportunities (many offer CE credit) as part of my job as well as community outreach programs and I get almost zero participation. The only time people show up is if you make it super-mandatory (uh-huh, I said it- mandatory doesn't mean diddly anymore) and pay them. You'd think nurses would want to learn, keep up to date with new info, etc, but in my experience people just want to come in, do the job they're [under]paid for, and go home. No extra, even if it helps them.

To an extent, yes, this is true for me. While I do want to learn, I absolutely expect to be paid for my time, so if something is going to be mandatory, I'll be getting paid for it. Every nurse works hard for every single penny they earn and most are probably underpaid, and we should all respect ourselves enough to know it's only right for our employer to pay us for coming in for anything. You bet I'm not stepping foot in the hospital if I'm not getting paid.

That being said, I do look things up on my own at home. While in a t-shirt and undies all snuggled up on my bed with my cat and a bowl of ice cream.

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I would never and I mean never seek help from my employer or anything connected to my employer. In fact I don't even have a family doctor right now because I can't figure out where to get one that isn't connected to a hospital which either does or might potentially employ me. Call me paranoid but I work in a hospital I know exactly how easy it is to view medical records.

I don't even have any diagnosed mental issues and I'm that paranoid. Sorry, I think the idea is a great one, but I wouldn't trust you either.

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Specializes in ED, psych.
I know many would disagree with me, (which would make me happy, to be honest) but I think it's also a culture of the current workforce. I organize educational opportunities (many offer CE credit) as part of my job as well as community outreach programs and I get almost zero participation. The only time people show up is if you make it super-mandatory (uh-huh, I said it- mandatory doesn't mean diddly anymore) and pay them. You'd think nurses would want to learn, keep up to date with new info, etc, but in my experience people just want to come in, do the job they're [under]paid for, and go home. No extra, even if it helps them.

We do indeed want to learn.

But you might want to check out a few things before making such a blanket statement, like:

1. WHAT are these programs?

Are your CE opportunities applicable to the nurses you are hoping to present to? As an example, I had to attend a "mandatory" training last week on trach care and new documentation for the hospital... even though my floor now no longer accepts anyone with trachs.

2. WHEN are these programs?

We are seriously short staffed at the moment, with 4 positions open on the unit. During my shift, I can't even leave the floor to go to my car ... never mind attend a workshop. AFTER a shift? I need a break. I pick up a lot of OT to help out the unit and any time spent away is needed. 1x/month (4 hrs) for my residency meetings are enough, and those start at 8a ... which mean I have to get up around 6a when I came home 12:30a the night before from (you guessed it) work.

In fact, just looking at some CE/workshop/training/etc, they all seem to start at 8a. This sucks if you're going to bed around 1a (that is, if you leave on time that night).

Like purple roses, I'm a new nurse and I'm constantly looking things up, reading into things ... in the comfort of my home.

And yes, I like to get paid.

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Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.

Even if I were receptive and felt safe in doing this (how is telling someone I am struggling emotionally with my job at work safe?? It's not.), I can't imagine when I would have TIME during my shift for this. I also can't imagine wanting to give up my 30 minutes to myself during my 12-14 hours to talk about the stressful stuff that has been stressing me out all day. Nope. I want to pee. I want to eat. I want to rest and think about something else.

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
That being said, I do look things up on my own at home. While in a t-shirt and undies all snuggled up on my bed with my cat and a bowl of ice cream.

Are we the same person?

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I have to agree with others, I feel as if speaking with an "inside" person would mean less confidentiality, and I guess for me when I saw that person (psychologist) on the unit it would remind me of my mistake and I would feel embarrassed and humiliated all over again.

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Are we the same person?

Haha! Basically if I'm wearing pants, I had better be getting paid for it ;)

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Specializes in ICU; Telephone Triage Nurse.

I delivered my baby at a hospital I didn't work at to keep a healthy distance between work-medical and personal-medical. No way I wanted someone I knew seeing me in a compromising situation. Period.

I had the opportunity to select a PCP amongst the many providers at my current employer for reduced health costs. No way, I'll gladly pay extra for my privacy. Although our EMR is protected health information, it's really not. I have a coworker that takes every opportunity to scour other employee's EMR's (including providers) when she is given the chance to do so, and she can't keep a secret even if her life depended on it.

So, no, I would not divulge in a BH coworker. Paranoia is alive and well.

I'm genuinely curious, and not trying to be inflammatory, but want to ask the same question to you: would you divulge your problems to a coworker psychologist you work with?

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I delivered my baby at a hospital I didn't work at to keep a healthy distance between work-medical and personal-medical. No way I wanted someone I knew seeing me in a compromising situation. Period.

I had the opportunity to select a PCP amongst the many providers at my current employer for reduced health costs. No way, I'll gladly pay extra for my privacy. Although our EMR is protected health information, it's really not. I have a coworker that takes every opportunity to scour other employee's EMR's (including providers) when she is given the chance to do so, and she can't keep a secret even if her life depended on it.

So, no, I would not divulge in a BH coworker. Paranoia is alive and well.

I'm genuinely curious, and not trying to be inflammatory, but want to ask the same question to you: would you divulge your problems to a coworker psychologist you work with?

I'm shocked your coworker hasn't been fired yet? I mean you could bring that to the BON and her license could (and should be) revoked. If it's well-known that she does this and if she's revealed private health info to others as well, you could report her and she wouldn't be able to pinpoint who ratted her out.

Some people are just so disgusting. I cannot even fathom how any person, a nurse much less, could do that without their conscious gnawing at them the whole time. To peek at that info and then talk about it with others.

So yes OP, there you have it. Healthcare work environments can be downright scary.

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