Stress Management, Loss and Grief in Renal Nurses

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In this chapter, we address the relationship between loss and grief that renal nurses experience and stress management. Renal nurses provide care across the life span and health continuum, including acute and chronic care to patients with kidney disease. They are involved in health promotion, illness prevention, the management of acute, chronic and terminally ill care and rehabilitation. The nurses also have to deal with sudden or unexpected death. The degree of nurses' grief as a reaction to patient death may vary in intensity. This variation may be influenced by several factors present within the nurse him/herself and the nurse–patient relationship. Due to the demands of their profession, nurses may have to suppress their grief to respond to duty's call. This prevents them from undergoing the normal grieving process, which results to a range of consequences from burnout to potentially harmful addictions. Nurse educators have identified that historically nurses have not been prepared to care for dying patients. This lack of education has been reflected in the level and quality of terminally ill care provided to patients'.