Stress First Aid for Nurses
A peer-to-peer supportive model within an organization
Nurses Week 2021
Meet some of the nurses engaged in peer support.
About
What is Stress First Aid? SFA is a set of supportive and practical actions to assist nurses experiencing stress. SFA helps team members identify and address early signs of stress reactions in themselves and others in an ongoing way (not just after “critical incidents”). The ultimate aim is to enhance individual and unit resilience.
Goals: The goals of the Stress First Aid (also referred to as Stress Control) training program when implemented in the organization include:
a. Improve peer and leader abilities to recognize stress reactions and injuries using the stress continuum model and respond with compassionate, restorative support
b. Deliver occupational stress first aid (continuous, primary, and secondary aid) techniques to address stress and respond with appropriate tailored support to the individual and organizational context
c. Enhance individual and team ability to have conversations about work stressors
d. Integrate caregiver occupational stress control principles into clinical leadership skills and management strategies as applicable.
Anticipated Outcomes
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Increased individual resilience
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Increased staff engagement
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Increased unit resilience and cohesion
The Stress Continuum Model
The Stress Continuum Model is a visual tool for assessing your own and others’ stress responses. It views stress along a continuum with increasing severity. It acknowledges that every person will react differently when faced with severe or long-term stress. How a person reacts is dependent on their coping skills and resiliency and their preparation for and interpretation of the stressor event. Moving across the continuum, a person’s state can change from the Green to Yellow to Orange to Red zone, and back again. The approach provides a flexible multi-step process for the timely assessment and preclinical response to psychological injuries in individuals or units. SFA provides tools to recognize the signs of Orange zone stress and take steps to lessen the severity of the situation and our response.
