The topic of burnout among critical care nurses is a topic of great importance in today’s health care. This essay examines the article written by Arnold M. Bakker, Pascale M. Le Blanc and Wilmar B. Schaufeli, “Burnout Contagion Among Intensive Care Nurses,” published in The Journal of Advanced Nursing. This article reports on burnout in critical care nurses. The authors are presenting their data which has an impact on society in general and directly affects the workforce providing health care. The authors present evidence in their paper which contradicts previous studies of the subject. The purpose of this rhetorical essay is to evaluate whether the reader is convinced by the authors’ argument to accept the claim that burnout among critical care nurses is due to contagion, rather than previously given reasons. The authors’ formal writing style and presentation of study results helps to increase the readers understanding of the claim. The authors make a convincing argument that contagion warrants attention in the healthcare field to address registered nurse (RN) retention.
Bakker, Le Blanc and Schaufeli begin by explicitly defining burnout and the characteristics of burnout (277). The claim the authors make is that burnout among critical care nurses is due to contagion, i.e., communicated from one nurse to another, rather than reasons presented in previous studies of the subject. The authors present the previously stated reasons for critical care nurse burnout: excessive workload, high patient care demands, time constraints and intensive use of sophisticated technology. The authors’ warrant is explicitly stated by their presentation of statistical evidence obtained from a large study of nurse interviews. Bakker, Le Blan...
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...that should receive immediate attention. The growing health care industry must direct its attention to RN retention in general but especially in critical care units. The authors have provided sufficient evidence to state their claim. Through the use of multiple rhetorical tools the writers have presented a logical analysis to their theory and engaged the audience. The logical presentation of their data helps to present the issue in a very clear format. By stating that there are other logical reasons for burnout among critical care RNs and that there are limitations to their study, it gives credibility to the authors and does not paint the picture that the authors are all knowing.
Works Cited
Bakker, Arnold B., Pascale M. Blanc, and Wilmar B. Schaufeli. “Burnout Contagion Among Intensive Care Nurses.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 51.3 (2005): 276-288. Print.
The issues of nursing burnout and compassion fatigue are an important one in part, because of the ongoing nursing shortage across the united states. Per the American colleges of nursing “the U.S. is projected to experience a shortage of Registered Nurses (RN’s) that is expected to intensify as Baby Boomers age and the need for health care grows” (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2017). The ACA fact sheet cites several reasons for this including; the increasing needs of an aging population, healthcare reform, decreased enrollment in nursing programs, shortages of nursing faculty, large portions of working nurses
A current study shows that 66% of new graduate nurses experience severe burnout due to poor workplace environment (Laschinger & Fida, 2014, p. 20). Rudman and Gustavsson (2011) reported that newly graduated nurses have 50% chance of developing high levels of severe burnout during their second year post graduation (p. 292). According
Working in long-term care can be overwhelming. Imagine you are a new graduate nurse putting your new found knowledge and skills to practice for the first time. Your orientation lasted three days which is standard for nurse home orientation compared to hospital orientation that last approximately six to eight weeks for new grads. The shift has just begun and already you have a new admit, new found pressure ulcer to assess, a possible medication reaction, several new orders to take off and eight patients to document on for varying reasons. Feelings of frustration and confusion take over as you are the only nurse on the unit along with a Certified Medication Technician (CMT) and three Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) taking care of 47 patients. Ideal nurse-to-patient ratio continues to be a national issue in both the hospital and long-term care setting (LTC). In the LTC setting there is no official nurse-to-patient ratio; there is a suggested staff-to-patient ratio. This issue not only affects the new licensed nurses but the seasoned nurse as well. Recently, there has been controversial debates as to whether heavy workloads are detrimental to patients. The federal, state, and local government regulates many aspects of healthcare. However, it is the physicians, nurses and other healthcare professional that provide care directly to patients. Consequently, does insufficient staffing, heavy workloads, and unsupportive work environment directly contribute to poor patient satisfaction, nurse burnout, high turnover and job dissatisfaction?
In conclusion, the above research analysis explained many contributing factors to stress and burnout and its effect on performance. As expected from prior studies, job satisfaction has an effect on productivity and/or burnout. Burnout in US nurses has been linked to Philippine nurses, despite a difference in health-care systems. Gender has also proven to be a contributing factor to stress. Women have a significant level of stress compared to men due to additional work of housework and childcare. Women also are linked to low levels of emotional exhaustion with co-worker support. Finally, perception organizational support has been linked to emotional exhaustion, but not solely due to the organization. Hopefully, organizations will continue to adopt stress reducing programs and recognize that it has many contributing factors.
Vahey, Doris C., Linda H. Aiken, Douglas M. Sloane, Sean P. Clarke, and Delfino Vargas. "Nurse Burnout and Patient Satisfaction." Medical Care 42.Suppl (2004): II-57-II-66. Print.
Recent literature reports that there is a nursing shortage and it is continually increasing. Data released by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2011) projects that the shortage, would increase to 260,000 by the year 2025. AACN (2011) also reported that 13% of newly registered nurses changed jobs and 37% were ready to change within a year. A study conducted reports that there is a correlation between higher nursing workloads and nurse burnout, retention rates, job dissatisfaction and adverse patient outcomes (Vahey & Aiken, 2004). Among the nurses surveyed in the study, over 40% stated that they were suffering from burnout while 1 in 5 nurses intended
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 high burn-out rates among nurses have higher levels UTI’s, and surgical infections (World, 2012). Nursing burnout not only affects the nurse, but it also affects the patient, the nurses’ colleagues, and the nurses’ family; nursing burn out often leads to emotional exhaustion and depression, that can effect relations and communication between the nurse effected and the person they are communicating with. This paper will cover what burn-out is, who is susceptible to burn out, and treatment and prevent nursing burn out.
A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that “annually approximately 1.7 million hospitalized patients acquire infections while being treated for other medical conditions, and more than 98,000 of these patients will die as a result of their acquired infection” (Cimiotti et al., 2012, p. 486). It was suggested that nursing burnout has been linked to suboptimal patient care and patient dissatisfaction. Also, the study shows that if the percentage of nurses with high burnout could be reduced to 10% from an average of 30%, approximately five thousand infections would be prevented (Cimiotti et al., 2012). In summary, increasing nursing staffing and reduction burnout in RNs is a promising strategy to help control urinary and surgical infections in acute care facilities (Cimiotti et al.,
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 not just involve sleepiness as has been assumed before. It involves utter exhaustion that is not easily mitigated through rest. When nurses ignore the signs of fatigue, they risk the development of chronic fatigue and other health problems that may not be easily treated. Additionally, fatigue may cause nurses to lose more time at work as they may have to be away from work for several days to treat it. The issue of nurse fatigue has permeated the nursing profession to the extent of causing errors in the work performed by nurses. Fatigue causes a decrease in a nurse’s ability to make accurate decisions for themselves and their patients. It is therefore important to find ways to curb nurse fatigue such that it is no longer a problem. Nurse fatigue is a danger to the patients, organizations and to the nurses themselves and must be mitigated adequately.
However, with the passing of several shifts displeasure soon becomes burnout which is also known as exhaustion. In fact, burnout in the Emergency Room is comprised of factors which include understaffing both professionally and ancillary, patient to nurse aggression and unappreciation from leadership (Hlaing, Olson, Roso and Stutzman 2017) which contributes highly to employee dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction is the main contributor to the problems concerning the retention of
The problem in the previous paper addresses whether or not short staffing in a hospital setting contributes to an increased number of nurse burnout. The focus of my groups work is to identify relevant causes that contribute to a nurse burnout and the interventions with providing evidence based research. The significance of this issue is that nurse burnout has contributed to numerous adverse affects in a hospital environment. When a unit is short staffed it creates a nurse more stress and responsibilities that contributes to participating in workarounds which are “short cuts”. If the nursing interventions are not done per procedure then there can be associated complications. “According to the Michigan Nurses Association, short staffing is connected
However, upon securing a job, they find that things on the ground are not as they had expected them to be and this results in some of them deciding to leave the profession early. Research shows that turnovers within the nursing fraternity target person below the age of 30 (Erickson & Grove, 2011). The high turnover within the nursing fraternity results in a massive nurse shortage. This means that the nurses who decide to stay have to work for many hours resulting in exhaustion. A significant percent of nurses quitting their job sites exhaustion and discouragement as the reason that contributed to their decision. In one of the studies conducted on the issue of nurse turnover, 50% of the nurses leaving the profession argued that they felt saddened and discouraged by what they were unable to do for their patients (Erickson & Grove, 2011). When a nurse witness his/her patients suffering but cannot do anything because of the prevailing conditions he/she feels as if he/she is not realizing the reason that prompted him/her to join the nursing profession. The higher rate of nursing turnover is also affecting the quality of care nurses provide to
Nurses want to give complete and quality care, but are unable to, due to the constant needs of their workload and inadequate staffing. They have to prioritize their patients needs based on the most critical treatments first. Then whatever time is left, they fill in what treatments they can. Some reasons that nursing treatments are missed include: too few staff, time required for the nursing intervention, poor use of existing staff resources and ineffective delegation.” (Kalisch, 2006) Many nurses become emotionally stressed and unsatisfied with their jobs. (Halm et al., 2005; Kalisch,
Poghosyan, Clarke, Finlayson, and Aiken (2010) in a cross-national comparative research explored the relationship between nurses’ burnout and the quality of care in 53,846 nurses from six countries. Their researched confirmed that nurses around the world experience burnout due to increase workload. Burnout was manifested as fatigue, irritability, insomnia, headaches, back pain, weight gain, high blood pressure, and depression. Burnout influenced nurses’ job performance, lowered patient satisfaction, and it was significantly associated with poor quality of care. Patient safety decreased as nurses’ job demands
Workplace stress and burnout is one of the leading problems in healthcare workers today. Stress is a mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances. Healthcare leaders today have to meet so many demanding needs and responsibilities. We ask why does stress and burnout play such an important role in today’s society. There are many reasons why it plays an important role in our everyday work and life. There have been studies on ways to detect, prevent, and decrease stress and burnout.