Critical Incident Stress Management

How do you cope after a patient has just died?

You still have a shift to get through and you still have other patients who require your best care. What kind of psychological effect will this have on you?

Nurses and Critical Incidents

A nurse's wellbeing is critical to being able to perform their job effectively and provide excellent care. When a nurse encounters an adverse event or critical incident, this can impact their emotional health and even lead to further physical problems. A term to describe these encounters and reactions is critical incident stress (CIS). A critical incident is described as an event that is sudden, overwhelming and threatening and encompasses events such as assaults, threats, death and severe injury (NSW DoPI 2016; Better Health Channel 2011).