Care and compromise: developing a conceptual framework for work-related stress

In this paper we argue that in the current global healthcare climate, practitioners’ ability to provide compassionate and high quality care is undermined on a daily basis, not least by the organisational priorities of cost containment, of science and technology and, paradoxically, innovations experienced as demands such as specialisation. It is not surprising that the financial and workforce constraints of the global healthcare system, now more than ever, affect the practitioners’ capacity to deliver the optimum level of care, care that is positively influenced by patient satisfaction, a current indicator of quality. Whilst the notions of quality and standards have increasingly become the concern of healthcare organizations, quality cannot be considered in isolation from the healthcare management and occupational health of the workforce. In this paper we argue that healthcare practitioners are especially vulnerable to stress because the very nature of caring as a profession demands high levels of emotional engagement and compromise. It is clear that at a time when healthcare systems are under-resourced and over-stretched, practitioners may experience additional stress, ironically at a time when services need to increase retention, recruitment and job satisfaction. We propose a conceptual framework of stress and compromise in relation to caring and a methodology for developing an intervention that would consider how compromise itself may be utilised and adapted to both alleviate stress and inform individual and professional development.