Question

• Discuss the ambiguity and conflict in nursing roles required in critical care areas, balancing the biomedical model of care with holistic nursing of patients and families. What societal trends have increased family caregiver stress and burden?

Answer 1

Nurse case managers experience substantial role ambiguity and role conflict as they transition from clinical bedside to case manager roles.

Ambiguity is inherent within nursing practice. As health care becomes increasingly complex, nurses must continue to successfully deal with greater amounts of clinical ambiguity. Although ambiguity is discussed in nursing, minimal concept refinement exists to capture the contextual intricacies from a nursing lens. Nurse perception of an ambiguous clinical event, in combination with nurse tolerance level for ambiguity, can impact nurse response.

Nurses experience uncertainty with handling complexity and ambiguity when confronted with times of struggle. Nurses witness to the discomfort caused by the unknown in their daily practice. They are challenged to address their feelings, unsure of what to anticipate, what to say, or how to respond to their patients. The opportunity for meaningful dialogue between nurses and other people diminishes uncertainly. . Nurses attempting to ease the discomfort of ambiguity by providing patients or families with reassurance, offering advice on how to fix problems, or avoiding talking about situations often express dissatisfaction. Nurses should be invited to explore ambiguity and seek understanding through dialogue and nursing knowledge. Encouraging nurses to define the meaningfulness in nursing practice that embraces human science theory will help relieve some of the ambiguity that exists in current practice.

There are various types of conflicts and disagreements that can arise in the workplace when you are a nurse manager.

Nurse Bullying:

Disruptive behaviors not only threaten the emotional well-being but can undermine patient safety. For nurse managers, this means they must learn to confront disruptive behavior when it occurs and enforcing a zero-tolerance policy for bullying. As a manager deal with a bully in the workplace is to share the code of conduct that clearly defines unacceptable behaviors and states which actions will be taken when the code is violated. A code of conduct has to be enforced uniformly in all units to be effective, and staff must be aware of its existence.

Intergenerational Conflict:

Challenges can arise with nurse managers who supervise nurses from different generational groups, simply because of differences in working styles and communication approaches. It takes adjustments to one’s typical communication style and preference, and flexibility and patience on the part of the manager to effectively manage different personalities with different backgrounds and mindsets. Mentoring opportunities between nurses of different ages and skill levels must be created. This can forge new friendships and bring people together who might be less likely to do so otherwise. Managers can help all nurses, no matter their stage in career, find shared goals with their peers and focus on common ground when working together.

Interdisciplinary Conflict:

A good way to resolve interdisciplinary conflict between nurse managers and other healthcare professionals such as physicians is for managers to communicate effectively—both about their vision of collaboration and the goals that all parties involved share. This effort to communicate openly will build self-confidence among nurses who may feel intimidated by the shift to more collaborative care.

Conflict resolution comes naturally to some, but many nurses need education on how to improve this and other related skills that are essential for managers. Whether you aspire to be a nurse manager or nurse leader (acquiring the skills to manage teams of nurses large and small is essential.

Societal trends that have increased family caregiver stress have changed the caregivening landscape and made the role of those who support seniors living in their homes and communities even more critical.

Family members now a days no longer all live in the same place. This raises the issue of who will care for aging parents, of how children will care for parent from distance. Blended, divorced, and non-traditional family structures also complicate the provisions of care to aging or disabled family members, often blurring responsibilities.

Along with changes in family structure, health care advances have created new care needs. While more people than ever before are surviving infectious diseases, traumatic injuries, and chronic illnesses, these conditions often create a need for long-term care to assist those now living with disabilities.