Proceedings, Oxford, UK (2002) - World Federation of Music Therapy

Table 51 Stressors
And…“I never thought I’d fall so deeply in love with the kids and their
families, that we’d lose so many kids, that I’d be able to work with dying
kids. Working in Pediatrics is far more intense than anything - the joys
are deeper, the laughs are harder, the grief lasts longer.”
Sources of Stress
Q: The following have been identified as potential sources of stress for
palliative care workers. Please circle whether, for you, they are sources
of high (H), medium (M), low (L), or no (N) stress, and elaborate on your
experience.
This question was followed by 11 identified stressors. In Table 51 these
stressors are listed in order from greatest to least often cited source of
stress for the total sample. (For this list, ‘high and ‘medium’ sources of
stress were collapsed, as indicated by the middle column in red). The
question was also analyzed according to the 6 sub-groups of music
therapists who worked varying numbers of years and hours per week.
STRESSORS %H %M %H+M %L %N
1. Exposure to grief/death 27 47 74 23 2
2. Workload 26 42 68 22 10
3. Lack of patient stability 13 38 51 34 16
4. Team issues 16 30 46 36 18
5. Physical resources 19 23 42 28 31
6. Status 11 29 40 28 32
7. Performance anxiety 9 25 34 42 24
8. Over-identification 5 27 32 46 22
9. Role ambiguity 8 22 30 40 30
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