Nursing teachers’ experiences of the process of recovery while participating in a group programme for reducing work-related stress: A qualitative content analysis

Abstract

Work-related stress is an increasing health problem among nursing teachers, contributing to health problems, disengagement and poor job satisfaction. Negative coping strategies impact on both teachers' and students' teaching-learning experiences. Several interventions have been developed to address work-related stress. There has been less focus on how nursing teachers can learn to recover from work-related stress before it has severe consequences for their health, and to understand it from a nursing perspective. The aim of this study was to explore how nursing teachers who participated in a cognitive relational group programme experienced the process of recovery from work-related stress. Data were collected by means of three focus groups and subjected to qualitative content analysis, resulting in three categories: relatedness, evoking the inner caregiver, and re-orientation in life. These categories were reflected on in relation to Benner and Wrubel's “primacy of caring” and synthesised into a metaphorical theme: “finding one's footings”. The findings imply that the development of positive coping strategies as well as knowledge and understanding about psychological processes are vehicles in the process of recovery. We conclude that interventions also need to account for the process of recovery as related to an ontological level and the person's Being-in-the-World.