Challenges facing the renal nursing workforce

Abstract

There has been extensive research investigating stress in the nursing workforce, known as a ‘caring’ occupation, to assess the impact of the emotional labour of caring. Most of the recent evidence cites increasing nursing workloads contributing to the phenomenon of nursing stress, and this is widely predicted to continue to increase. The current shortage in the renal nursing workforce has largely been considered a ‘subset of overall supply’; however, with hundreds of registered nurse (RN) vacancies in renal globally, as well as increases in population level end stage kidney disease (ESKD), the renal specialty is under additional pressure (Wolfe, 2014).