Graduation Year
2024
Document Type
Senior Thesis
Degree
Bachelor of Science in Nursing
Primary Major
Nursing
Primary Minor
Leadership
Thesis Advisor
Deborah Meshel, BSN, MSN
Abstract
Nurses play a critical role in healthcare, yet the demanding work environment often exposes them to stressors, leading to the development of depression and anxiety. According to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) (2021), 50.8% of nurses have stress, 74% have anxiety, 70.8% have depression, and 79.1% have at least one of them. Burnout, understaffing, COVID fatigue, alarm fatigue, patient ratios, and disrupted sleep patterns are some of the stressors nurses contend with in every shift. While some nurses may cope and overcome these challenges, many face more severe issues, such as suicide. Nurse suicide is an issue that has begun to grow exponentially across the United States. Howard (2023) reported an annual suicide rate of 14 per 100,000 nurses. Compared with other U.S. workers, nurses are at higher risk for suicidal ideation, and nurses with such ideation are more reluctant to seek help than those without it (Elizabeth et al., 2021). In this paper, critical nurses are defined as nurses who work in intensive care and oncology units. There is limited research on the efficacy of resources used to decrease anxiety and depression in the workplace. Some interventions can be implemented to decrease the prevalence of depression and anxiety in the critical care nurse setting. The purpose of this Research proposal is to identify the factors causing depression and anxiety in nurses working in the Intensive Care Unit versus the oncology department and determine if meditation and visualization are effective in decreasing the rates of depression and anxiety. How does the practice of meditation reduce the incidence of depression and anxiety in nurses, specifically analyzing ICU and Oncology nurses? The hypothesis is that meditation and visualization will decrease the amount of depression and anxiety in ICU and oncology nurses.