Cardiovascular nurses and organizational well-being: a systematic review

Aims This systematic review assesses the organizational well-being of nurses working in cardiovascular settings and identifies environmental variables influencing it. Methods and results The Joanna Briggs Institute's methodology and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines have been followed. The search was conducted, from the database inception up to and including 1 December 2022, on Medline (via PubMed), Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health, Cochrane Library, and Scopus. Critical appraisal and data extraction were conducted using standardized tools. Six articles of high quality were included. These mostly concerned cross-sectional studies, conducted in heterogeneous contexts, which highlight the peculiarity of the cardiovascular nursing setting. Three thematic areas were identified: stressors of cardiovascular settings; outcomes of stressors on nurses; and coping strategies used by cardiovascular nurses to deal with such stress factors. Identified stress factors included a lack of autonomy, conflicts between professional and family roles, high workloads, and stressful relationships with patients and caregivers. These organizational variables could generate nurses' burnout, depression, irritability, and/or sleep disorders. In trying to cope with such stressors, cardiovascular nurses used different strategies for compensating, avoiding, escaping, or ignoring the problem, or, in other cases, became somewhat aggressive. Conclusion Considering the limited data, cardiovascular nursing coping strategies should be further investigated, so that effective pathways for preventing or limiting stress factors can be identified and applied by the organizations. Monitoring and intervening on stress factors in this care setting could improve cardiovascular nurses' organizational well-being and accordingly patients' outcomes. Registration PROSPERO: CRD42022355669