Nursing Burnout Essay

H1An Important Tip for Reducing Nurse Burnout Is Changing From Working in Facilities to Becoming a Home Health Care Nurse

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

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

Burnout is a gradual onset with symptoms coming on over time slowly. Burnout symptoms may include physical exhaustion, hopelessness, negative self-concept, having difficulty leaving home, and inability to concentrate are just some of the symptoms. Due to the gradual onset of symptoms, it is often hard to detect early (Dass-Brailsford, 2007). In McCann and Pearlman’s article they discuss burnout as a, “psychological strain from working with difficult populations” (McCann & Pearlman, 1990).

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

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).

Burnout is defined as an internal psychological experience that involves feelings, attitudes, motives and expectations. Burnout means the energy of an individual has been consumed by helping others. Energy crisis occurs when the psychic demand exceeds the supply. Burnout is often experienced with a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion caused by a long-term involvement within an emotionally demanding situation. Burnout is often accompanied by physical depletion, feelings of helplessness, disillusionment, negative self-concept and negative attitudes toward employment, people and life in itself. Burnout represents a breaking point where it’s hard for an individual to cope with the environment surrounding them. Compassion fatigue is often caused by a work related stress and it is also an increase of loss in compassion over a period of time. Compassion fatigue can share similar

Nurses must support each other and “start a movement” (Tucker, S. 2016) to eliminate nursing “burnout”. The quality of nurse’s lives will improve and accordingly, their ability to provide exceptional care will be the “icing on the cake”. Now picture this; it is 2:50 pm and 1st shift is coming to an end, patients were checked one last time and all of their needs have been met. It was busy shift, but there was time for a walk and some breathing exercises. A nurse is giving report to the next shift and she actually has time to get in a quick workout before dance recitals soccer games, and PTA meetings; but more importantly, she made a difference

The Question asked was “Why is burnout important in nursing?”, I look at the question as, “Why is burnout important to recognize before burnout happens?”. I don’t see burnout important as much as I believe recognizing it. Burnout is defined when nurses can no longer cope with the stresses and strains of professional nursing and choose to leave the profession to seek employment elsewhere (Masters, 2014). I believe if burnout is recognized as something that happens when entering a nursing career, nurses can proactively work on avoiding this. As a new nurse, these things are not thought of. New nurses are so focused on learning their job and performing at the best of their ability and while doing so they are slowly reaching burnout. Knowing what is expected to be a nurse, the work environment stresses, home life stresses, and knowing the unequal balance that can plague a nursing career, can be a platform to find strategies to manage 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

The six articles that have been selected were from the last five years all used the topic of nursing burnout to determine the care of patients. This literature review will look at the different causes of nursing burnout and the effects it has on patient care and satisfaction.

While China has been impacted with a one-child policy, this has not only caused dysfunction in the family, but also has created functional improvements as well; in terms of taking control over the country’s population crisis. In the 1970’s China upgraded women statuses by implementing a forcible policy for all women to obey, called the one-child policy which allows some women to give birth to only one child; and no more or strict consequences would be enforced and applied. This policy was designed to educate women, on the importance of a one-child family; in order to reduce the overwhelming population in China. By doing this China in turn would give the families money for adhering to the rules set forth, by abiding to their wishes and accepting a certification and cash rewards; just for maintaining stability on not placing a cash levy on the state for births. Women that became pregnant after the first child was conceived would soon be asked to part with the unborn, by that of terminating the birthing of that new addition (or child); if a one-child certificate was in the hand of the pregnant mother to be. "If she refuses she loses her bonus, will be left out of the next wage increase, and will suffer scorn by her co-workers" (Lindsey, 2011, pg. 147).

Nursing is one tough career to get into and continue to work when growing older. Registered Nurses, also known as RN’s are experiencing the physical, mental, and emotional challenges of growing older while the profession demands more. Physical fatigue along with orthopedic problems of the back, feet, knees, and wrists are common. The interruption of circadian rhythms, as well as family schedules, caused by working night and evening shifts affect nurse performance and lifestyle, encouraging many to move into positions outside the hospital setting.

Workforce instability due to “burnout” in the nursing field, as demonstrated by high rates of staff turnover and lingering vacancy rates, continue to be a major challenge facing healthcare organizations in the U.S. According to the Webster’s New World Dictionary, the definition of burnout is “the condition of someone who has become very physically and emotionally tired after doing a difficult job for a long time” (Burnout 2015). The term "burnout" was created in the 1940s, and was used to define when a jet engine stopped working to the point where it was no longer operational. In the 1970’s, human beings began to use this word. a "psychiatrist Herbert Freudenberger used the term to describe the status of overworked volunteers in mental health clinics. He compared the loss of idealism in these volunteers to a building--once a vital structure--that had burned out, and he defined burnout as the progressive loss of idealism, energy, and purpose experienced by people in the helping professions as a result of the condition of their work" (Freudenberger 1970 as cited in Copper, 2001). Though nurses themselves may be overwhelmed, distraught, and unhappy. A high patient-to-nurse ratio have been shown to lead to frustration and job burnout, which is linked to higher turnover. Under these circumstances, nurses leave the industry due to flexibility, to retirement, and to find employment that is less stressful and physically demanding.

Burnout is a combination of factors, including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and the reduced sense of personal accomplishment (Maslach, 1982). Emotional exhaustion is accompanied with a lack of compassion and motivation to work, while depersonalization leads to irritability.