Fragilisation de la santé mentale et suicidalité chez les infirmières novices : mesures de prévention organisationnelles
The first months of novice nurses’ job is very stressful and can be experienced by them with difficulty. Following the deaths of some Quebec nurses, including a novice nurse, in the last five years, it is appropriate to ask whether the work related stress does not contribute to the risk of suicidality (suicidal thoughts, suicidal ideation, suicide attemps, completed suicides) of novice nurses. Therefore, the aim of the work is to propose, on the basis of established knowledge about the organizational factors that can contribute to the suicide of novice nurses, suicide prevention measures to the attention of managers. With its central concepts : work organization, the sources of suffering and defensive strategies, the framework of the psychodynamics of work of Dejours (1993) was selected to guide and structure the integrative literature review; the latter being composed of 26 empirical studies, seventeen theoretical writings and one book. From this review, it appears that the organization of work can be a source of suffering for novice nurses. The latter also face several organizational sources of suffering (high workload, stress at work, lack of support, etc.) and, although novices can deploy some adaptation strategies, these suffering undermine their mental health and help to increase their risk of suicide. In this spirit, an organizational prevention program of suicidality among novice nurses is proposed to the attention of managers, which includes several organizational measures that can be implemented in Quebec’s health care organizations.
suicidality novice nurse mental health