Stress and exhaustion can have a serious impact on physical, mental and emotional health. Common signs of this include fatigue, irritability, anxiety, depression, insomnia, headaches, lack of motivation, decreased performance and loss of interest. If you observe any of these symptoms in yourself or your students, it's time to take action. As a mentor, it is important to be understanding and helpful while also respecting your own limits and needs. Creating healthy boundaries with your students is essential.
This includes setting clear expectations on how often and for how long you communicate, what topics you can and cannot address, and what kind of feedback you can provide. Be consistent in your role and expectations and don't take on more than you can manage. The Ohio State University nursing home has around 2200 students enrolled in baccalaureate, master's, doctorate in practical nursing and doctorate programs. It offers a variety of curricular and non-curricular programs to optimize student well-being. The 7-point version of the PWBI was used as it had been validated and proven to be a useful screening tool for identifying the suffering of doctors and other healthcare workers in areas that could negatively affect their practice.
Research has demonstrated that mentoring can have a positive emotional impact on both the mentor and mentee. Ohio has encouraged intentional and persistent initiatives to address and support the well-being of its students, interns, and practicing doctors in medicine, nursing, and health sciences. Workplace mentoring programs can have a positive effect on the stress level of both the mentor and the mentee. Just as talking about problems with friends or family can help us better understand the problem, talking about workplace stressors in a mentoring relationship can be cathartic. According to the program's final survey, more than 90 percent of participants agree that the program improved their personal well-being, and more than 96 percent agree that the program taught them personal care skills that will be useful in their nursing practice. Ohio State is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio with more than 66,000 students and more than 45,000 faculty and staff.
Current organizational strategies for addressing health professionals' well-being, stress, and burnout vary in scope (e.g., focusing solely on individual mindfulness versus a broader scope of healthy behavior, communication, social support or organizational change), type of intervention (e.g., individual, group or online) and outcome measures. Recognizing that these anxieties were common among mentors and mentees alike made them feel more comfortable talking about them and sharing different coping mechanisms. A mentor who has been with the organization for some time will better understand how to navigate the waters in a productive and effective way. Workplace mentoring programs can also improve mentors' self-esteem by helping them use their skills and knowledge in a new way. The results also indicate a decrease in perceived stress, exhaustion and inflammation in overweight people. While Ohio State programs and policies will not apply directly to every institution, this case study offers practical guidance and potential solutions that can be implemented and adapted in other systems and organizations.
