The Importance Of Nurse Burnout In Nursing

Those of us who graduated from nursing school and started their first job were full of dreams, aspirations, and had every intention of making a difference. Now fast forward five years; these same nurses have been on their feet for 16 hours and have not had time to eat or use the bathroom since leaving their homes this morning. The call lights will not stop going off long enough for them to give report to the oncoming nurses and once again they are late for their children’s dance recitals or soccer games. They can forget about trying to squeeze a yoga class in this week. I understand what it is like to rush to your car feeling as if some important task was forgotten; was Mr. Smith’s tube feed restarted, did room 8 receive their pain medication? Nurses all over the world are experiencing “burnout”. To avoid burnout, nurses must properly care for themselves by separating work from personal life, knowing when to say no, and making time for enjoyable activities to manage stress, because we cannot provide quality patient care if we are neglecting ourselves.

Staff nurses have great responsibilities in caring for patients. Often, these nurses experience heavy workload. Heavy patient load and stress contributes to burnout. Why is burnout important to discuss in relation to nurses? Burnout affects the performance of the nurse and the quality of care he or she provides to the patient. Therefore, it is imperative that staff nurses decrease the possibility of burnout and increase or maintain excitement and enjoyment in the field of nursing. If nurses do so, they will find joy in their work and quality of patient care will be increased. Contributors to burnout and

Workload was described to be heavy, stressful, increase in intensity and overtime hours. As a result 25.8% consider resigning, 20.2% consider retiring and 25.6% consider leaving profession. Another problem that was observed at individual level was poor commitment to care. One of the factors that often limited nurses to provide therapeutic care was the change in nurse to patient ratio. As nurses assignments increase with the increase in the number of patients (i.e. 1 nurse to 6-8 patients) the quality of care provided decreases. Nurses’ ability to maintain safe environment became challenging. As part of caring, nurses also showed decreased amount of time spent with their patient. This eventually led to nurses being less satisfied with their current job. Self – efficacy was often low. Nurses felt that they did not have enough knowledge and skills required for professional practice (Newhouse, Hoffman, & Hairston, 2007). This often led into stressful transition and the ability to care for a patient even harder. New graduate nurses often had difficulty maintaining leadership role. They often felt that they did not have the ability to self advocate and raise their voice to be heard by others. They often feared that they would be over heard and that no one would listen to them (Mooney, 2007).

The term burnout, according to Catalano, is a continuing depletion of energy and strength combined with a loss of motivation and commitment after prolonged exposure to high occupational stress (2015). When a unit or facility is understaffed, not only do the nursing staff get burnt out, the patients also don’t receive the quality of care they deserve. Due to the increase in workload, nursing staff are more prone to making mistakes and medical errors and sometime times do not fellow facility policies. The nurse-patient ratio aspect sometimes gets overlooked at and that could lead to possible medication errors, lack of communication, falls, neglect, abuse and/or death may occur. Sometimes, it become so overwhelming people turn to leave the workforce all together. When nurses and CNA workload increase, they become frustrated and unhappy, and the desire to leave

Nurses work long hours and deal with high levels of stress during the workday which leads to nurse burnout. Nurse burnout is classified as physical and mental fatigue, which strongly affects the nurses emotions and motivation. (“Nursing Burnout”). Burnout is caused by various factors within the workplace, such as dealing with a hectic, fast-paced environment, caring for too many patients at one time, and working odd hours. When nurses deal with multiple patients per shift, high levels of responsibility, and their own personal problems, they can become exhausted and overwhelmed. Stress due to burnout can also affect the nurse’s mood in a negative way, causing the nurse to become impatient or irritable, which can oftentimes results in verbal or emotional abuse towards the

In the recent past, nursing has come to the forefront as a popular career amongst students across the globe. The demand for nurses has kept increasing gradually over the years. In fact, the number of registered nurses does not meet the demand of the private and public health sector. This phenomenon has resulted in a situation where the available registered nurses have to work extra hours in order to meet the patients’ needs. With this in mind, the issue of nurse fatigue has come up as a common problem in nursing. According to the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA), nurse fatigue is “a feeling of tiredness” that penetrates a persons physical, mental and emotional realms limiting their ability to function normally. Fatigue does

Nurses are prone to deal with death, whether they would prefer it or not. Although, there is an increase of medical advances to slow the progression of death, it is inevitable that patients will die. When a patient dies, nurses must deal with the grief and emotions that encompasses death. Due to the nature of how often nurses deal with death, it leads to an increase awareness of how they will someday face their own death. The increase in emotions and grief leads to an overwhelming increase in stress for nurses. Continuous increase in stress can lead to burn out in nurses. Therefore, nurses must learn effective coping methods of death to reduce any devastating emotions and maintain professionalism.

One of the most serious issues in nursing, that can affect a nurses career is nursing burn- out. According to the article “Where have all the nurses gone”, current nurses that are practicing, report high rates of job dissatisfaction (which is part of burn out) and 1 of 5 nurses may quit nursing in the next 5 years (Dworkin, 2002). Burnout is associated with nurses not coming in to work, not feeling satisfied when doing their job, high turnover rates and a lack of commitment to the work (Katisfaraki, 2013). If a nurse becomes burned- out, they may not take care of their patients as well and could make mistakes with medication administration. A study performed in the United States by Dr. Jeannie Cimiottti, shows that hospitals with

The issue of healthcare personnel scarcity continues to be an ongoing challenge across the globe. Invariably, nurses are at the pinnacle in the delivery of quality care in any healthcare setting. The ever-increasing demands for care stem from a patient populace that is emergent, growing older and needing more care due to the escalating shift in their disease process. Hence, nurses are torn between balancing an overloaded schedule, working extra hours and maintaining astuteness and professionalism. This transcends to compromised patient care, nursing burnout makes it difficult for them to experience the rewards of caring for patients in the way they had expected; thereby, adding to the shortage of

Additionally, the study found that a high patient to nurse ratio resulted in greater emotional exhaustion and greater job dissatisfaction amongst nurses. Each additional patient per nurse was associated with a 23% increase in the likelihood of nurse burnout, and a 15% increase in the likelihood of job dissatisfaction. Moreover, 40% of hospital nurses have burnout levels exceeding the normal level for healthcare workers, and job dissatisfaction among hospital nurses is four times greater than the average for all US workers. 43% of nurses involved in this study that reported job dissatisfaction intended to leave their job within the upcoming year. (Aiken et al.)

Theories for burnout in the nursing profession are presented in the jobs-demands resources model. “This study uses the job-demands resources model to clarify the role of burnout among nursing staff in the relationship between stress factors and intention to leave the profession”

Stressful work environments, long work hours and inadequate sleep all contribute to an increase in physical and mental exhaustion amongst nurses. Typically, people choose nursing as a career to help others and to make a difference in their lives, without realizing the number of duties this career demands. Nurses may suffer in silence when they are experiencing stress. The effects can impact safe and reliable care by decreasing job satisfaction, decreasing productivity, causing poor personal health, and compromising patient care. Many facilities would benefit from implementing evidence-based strategies to address nurse fatigue and burnout.

Nurses, always involved in patient care, sometimes experience detrimental effects with prolonged stress or “burnout” during their career throughout the years. Burnout is defined as an extended response to physical or emotional stressors. Some examples of these stressors are; memories of witnessing death, patient and family suffering, emotional stress of losing patients, feeling emotionally and physically drained, or emotional disconnect from staff which can all contribute to burnout. As a result, nurses can experience; exhaustion, anxiety, dissatisfaction and low capacity. Overall, burnout can have negative effects not just on the emotional and physical health of nurses but also on; patient satisfaction, outcomes and mortality of nurses and patients. Although, there are ways to reduce or prevent these negative effects of burnout from manifesting. For example, nurses can apply interventions to reduce these risks including; staff support, onsite counselors and psychiatrists for nurses and salary increases and reimbursement opportunities for nurses through clinical ladder programs. Nurses can also start by just saying no to certain requests, being aware of their tolerance level, by taking care of themselves and having fun outside of work. On the other hand, others do not think nursing burnout is fatal and nurses just need a break from their job to initiate change. Although, the issue of burnout is prevalent in nurse’s careers which need to be addressed more in society in

There are numerous elements that contribute to stress in the healthcare setting. Nurses’ days are full of physical, mental and emotional demands. There are societal demands and workplace demands created by the shortage. These stressors can become increasingly overwhelming and if there is no stress relief, job performance can and will be hindered. When fatigue and stress combine there is potential for “performance decrements”. This can include diminished capacity to manage a specific level of workload resulting in errors in the delivery of nursing care. This can produce damaging effects on the safety and advantageous outcomes for both the nurses and patients. (Reese, 2011). Therefore, finding a balance between lowering stress levels of

Nurses are especially vulnerable to several related effects of stress, such as burnout, job dissatisfaction, increased interpersonal problems, increased health complaints, disturbances in sleep patterns, as well as clinical depression and anxiety (Villani, Grassi, Cognetta, Toniolo, Cipresso, & Riva, 2013). The potential for stress can be reduced by resolving difficulties in the workplace promptly, addressing staff shortages, turnover and absenteeism, and developing clear objectives and plans (McIntosh, & Sheppy, 2013). Learning to manage and reduce stress by developing insight and coping strategies will help to maintain and promote nursing integrity and consistent patient care (McIntosh, & Sheppy, 2013).