From nurse education, clinical, or workforce issues through to healthy living, Nursing Review has it covered.

Nursing professionals in the United Kingdom are nearly twice as likely to suffer financial hardship than the general public, according to a major survey.

The survey of more than 2000 UK nurses, midwives and health care assistants also found that nurses were twice as likely to have experienced domestic abuse than the average woman.

The report Skint, shaken yet still caring. But who is caring for our nurses? was released late last month by the Cavell Nurses' Trust, a British charity for nurses.

The trust survey used measures and questions from existing UK hardship and crime surveys and found nurse respondents were nearly twice as likely to be unable to afford the basic necessities than the average person and health care assistants (HCAs) nearly three times as likely. Examples of basic necessities that nurses and HCAs reported struggling with included being able to regularly save £20 a month for a rainy day (44% nurses & 62% HCAs) and enough money to keep home in a decent state of repair (46% nurses & 57% HCAs).

The United Kingdom's Royal College of Nursing (RCN) responded to the report by saying it "painted a shocking picture of the hardships" faced by some nurses and midwives.

The Trust survey also found that 12 per cent of health workers reported non-physical domestic abuse which was four times the reporting rate of the general public (3%) and nearly three times higher than the average woman (4.2%).  Nurses  (10.7%) were less likely to report abuse than health care assistants (15.2%) but nurses reporting rates were still more than twice as high as the average woman. Examples of non-physical abuse included being stopped from seeing friends and relatives and repeatedly being belittled. 

It also found that twice as many health care workers (5.4%) reported their partner had threatened or used force (pushed, slapped, hit etc) than the general public (2.6%).

“It is deeply concerning that some nurses and midwives, who care for others at work, are at greater risk of domestic violence," said Carmel Bagness, the RCN's Professional Lead for Midwifery and Women’s Health.  "Their care and compassion should be celebrated and rewarded – not make them more vulnerable to abuse.

“With health services under such strain, it is not surprising that some face mental or physical health problems – but it is unacceptable in any situation. Not only is it damaging to the nurses themselves, but it will impact on patients and health care as a whole."

The RCN recently made a submission to the National Health Service's Pay Review Body calling for pay rises for 2017 and the following year to rise above the 1% public sector pay cap in "recognition of the many problems facing the nursing workforce".

Other survey findings included:

• Two in every five nurses has a physical or mental health condition expected to last longer than a year
• 61 per cent of nurses said their health was good or very good
• Health care workers scored an 8 out of 10 on a well-being scale when asked if they believed the things they did in their life were worthwhile.
• Health care workers had similar scores to the general public when asked how happy they were yesterday but reported higher levels of anxiety (a score of nearly 5-out-of-10 compared to 3-out-of-10 for the average person).

The 2254 respondents were mostly recruited via a social media campaign.  The research report says while the sample is non-random, the gender, age and regional profile of respondents was a "good match" to demographic data from the UK's Nursing Midwifery Council.

The majority of the sample were nurses (70 per cent), 9.4 per cent were midwives and 20 per cent were health care assistants (about 450).