Exam 1: Chapter 7 Flashcards
As a nurse manager, you observe a staff nurse who over the past few weeks has become withdrawn and has had several absences due to minor ailments. Your best action would be to:
a. ask the nurse if she is okay during report.
b. refer the nurse to the employee assistance program.
c. ask the nurse to meet with you for a few minutes before she leaves for the day.
d. write a note to the nurse advising her that her work attendance must improve.
ANS: C
Stress can lead to emotional symptoms such as depression and a variety of ailments. Meeting with the nurse privately may assist in identifying stress and possible solutions.
The nurse manager of a unit has lost many staff members, and the unit is now staffed with a large number of agency and traveling nurses. She knows that the agency and traveling nurses are all contracted to stay on the unit for the next 3 months. One way to improve morale and decrease stress in the unit would be to:
a. plan a social event and include the agency and traveling nurse staff members.
b. plan unit-based social events for your remaining permanent staff members.
c. request hospital-based “floating” nurses to substitute for the temporary staff.
d. implement team nursing.
ANS: A
Social support, in the form of positive work relationships, can be an important way to buffer the effects of a stressful work environment. Including all staff in the social event enables those who are not normally part of the team to experience this support
and provides an opportunity for the staff as a whole to develop supportive relationships.
As a nurse manager, the one activity you should not overlook is:
a. posting the yearly rotation schedule.
b. reviewing vacation requests.
c. scheduling staffing for holidays 6 months in advance.
d. anticipating staff sick days.
ANS: B
Free time and vacation time are needed for individuals to recharge. If time for work is more than 60% of wake time, or when self-time is less than 10% of wake time, stress levels increase.
A nurse manager has decided that she must institute some personal time-management steps to survive work and home life. Her first step should be to:
a. determine what takes up so much of her time and energy.
b. organize her personal and work spaces.
c. purchase a handheld personal digital assistant to help remind her of important meetings.
d. determine her personal and professional goals.
ANS: D
Personal time management refers, in part, to “the knowing of self.” Self-awareness is a critical leadership skill, and being self-aware and setting goals helps managers determine how their time is best spent.
A hospice nurse has been feeling very stressed at work because of both the physical strain and the emotional drain of working with clients with AIDS. She tries to walk 1 to 2 miles three times a week and to talk regularly with her husband about her work-related feelings. One reasonable stress-management strategy would be to:
a. start taking yoga lessons.
b. make an appointment to meet with a psychiatrist.
c. start jogging 5 to 6 miles every day.
d. plan to go out for a drink with fellow nurses after work every day.
ANS: A
Stress relief techniques include 30 minutes of exercise five times a week, as well as techniques such as yoga that relieve mental
stress.
The nurse manager is implementing a shared governance model to help with communication and decision making. Although staff members like the concept, change is difficult. Staff nurses feel:
a. more empowered.
b. more communicative.
c. less stressed.
d. more powerless and devalued.
ANS: D
Change can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed and powerless, especially if complexity compression or rapid, intense changes
have been involved.
The chief nursing officer listens to nurse managers verbalize their feelings of internal stress. One common source of internal stress seems to be:
a. the death of a loved one.
b. perfectionism.
c. getting married.
d. losing a job.
ANS: B
Losing a job, the death of a loved one, and getting married are examples of external stress.
The staff development educator presents a series of programs on stress management to the nurse managers. Research has indicated that an individual’s ability to deal with stress is moderated by psychological hardiness. Psychological hardiness is a composite of:
a. commitment, control, and challenge.
b. commitment, powerlessness, and passivity.
c. commitment, control, and passivity.
d. decreased isolation, challenge, and passivity.
ANS: A
Some people have the capacity to accept changes in life with good humor and resilience, which, in turn, influences behavior that
prevents illness. Hardiness involves the capacity to manage time and stress, to reframe situations positively, and to commit.
The chief nursing officer understands that a nurse manager can exhibit stress that is related to trying to keep up with the number of electronic messages that arrive, as well as trying to remain accessible to staff. What is a strategy that would assist the manager to manage the information overload effectively?
a. Ignore messages unless they are labeled as important.
b. Determine who is most likely to send useful or important information or requests.
c. Check e-mail messages once a day.
d. Encourage face-to-face meetings rather than e-mail.
ANS: B
Reduction of stress related to information overload requires the development of information-receiving and information-sending skills. Information-sending skills include determining most common sources of useful data, labeling files and folders to which e-mail messages can be directed, deletion of e-mails, and focusing on the most important pieces. Information-sending skills include keeping e-mail messages short (and calling if the message needs to be long) and considering the most appropriate medium for messages (telephone, fax, face-to-face).
In helping nurse managers to manage their time, the chief nursing officer suggests that they:
a. maintain a perfectionistic attitude.
b. set up a complaint list.
c. have good negotiation skills.
d. have good information literacy skills.
ANS: D
Time can be saved by using information technology effectively, as it assists with effective data retrieval and information gathering
and with communication related to a variety of needs in the management setting.
Which of the following statements would best define stress? Stress is:
a. the comfortable gap between how we like our life to be and how it actually is.
b. everyday life, both the highs and the lows.
c. a consequence or response to an event or stimulus that can be positive or negative.
d. identical to distress.
ANS: C
Stress is defined as a gap between how we would like our lives to be and how they actually are and as a consequence or response to an event or stimulus. It is not inherently bad (distress), and whether highs and lows are seen as distress or eustress is dependent on each individual’s interpretation of the event.
In a job interview for a nursing position, Marley can be assured that which of the following will occur?
a. Both eustress and distress
b. Only eustress
c. Only distress
d. Neither eustress nor distress
ANS: A
Eustress is defined as stress that is pleasant in nature, and distress is defined as stress of an unpleasant nature. One can assume that every interview has both of these stresses.
Which one of the following statements has been proven to be true?
a. Recent research has found that women do not have a unique physiologic response to stress.
b. Both men and women interpret the same stressor in the same manner without
regard to past experiences.
c. Stress influences the immune system in one complex manner.
d. Stressors that are identical do not necessarily have similar effects on each individual.
ANS: D
Stressors may be unique to certain environments, situations, and persons or groups, and individuals may respond to the same stressor in different ways.
An example of role stress occurs when:
a. the director of the ICU and the manager of the surgical unit wish to hire the same new employee.
b. two part-time staff members are hired to work in a unit, but the job expectations for them are not clear, and the head nurse expresses disappointment in their performance.
c. the nurse manager for the ICU wants to advocate for more staff and finds it difficult to find data to substantiate his proposal.
d. line managers believe that support staff use their technical knowledge to intrude on their authority.
ANS: B
Role stress is an additional stressor for nurses. Viewed as the incongruence between perceived role expectations and achievement, role stress is particularly acute for new graduates. Failure to comply with expectations can lead to role conflict. Role conflict and role ambiguity are major sources of conflict for nurses.
A staff nurse approaches the unit manager and indicates to her that because of her father’s death in the previous month, she is now finding it very difficult to do her work effectively. This would be considered a(n) ________ stress.
a. internal source
b. familial
c. burnout
d. external
ANS: D
External stress is outside and removed from the work setting, but it is considered work-related stress because of the impact it has on the worker.
