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Consequences of burnout in nurses
Consequences of burnout in nurses
Consequences of burnout in nurses
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Healthcare can be a rewarding and attractive field to work in, but at the same time it can be extremely exhausting, stressful, and dangerous. On top of the environmental risks nurses encounter within the workplace, there are some major emotional stress factors affecting their intrinsic senses and well-being. Despite a high level of competition among nursing students, and the number of those willing to work in healthcare, shortage of nursing staff continues to be an issue. Unfortunately, this issue leads to a whole set of concerns affecting nurses and patients, which is partly due to burnout. Such factors as moral distress, compassion, fatigue, and frustration, present a substantive problem among all the relevant and critical issues related …show more content…
Both physical and emotional burnouts are very crucial questions, and more than likely have affected every nurse at some point of their career. A nurse who is fatigued, exhausted, and sleep deprived, is at a much higher risk for causing an error such as administering wrong medication or dosage to a patient, forgetting about procedure, or omitting vital chart information, and many other mistakes that could possibly affect patient care. Basically, a burned out nurse is putting not only their own health, but also the safety of her patients and others at risk. The topic of burnout has become quite popular nowadays due to some sorrowful outcomes, and most of the contributors to nurse burnout have been thoroughly examined as well. Collaboration is vital in healthcare just like in every professional field. More experienced personnel are used to working in stressful environment, and are more likely to get through the workload. Thus, they should be helpful and supportive of younger nurses who are the immediate ones to get hit by burnout (Wagner, …show more content…
This feeling has become extremely prevalent among nurses today. It is institutional responsible to resolve every possible cause for moral distress which is a huge contributor to nurse burnout. Otherwise, they are at risk of losing quality hard-working employees (Wagner, 2015). According to one of the studies, “43% of surgical nurses who reported high levels of burnout said they intended to leave their jobs within the next 12 months. In comparison, 11% of nurses who were not burned out stated they still intended to leave their jobs” (Abendroth,
Inadequate rest which results in fatigue has major implications on the health and safety of registered nurses and can compromise patient care. Nurses often work three to four 12 hour shift a week without taking any breaks while on duty. They often have difficult workloads and challenges which can take a toll and impact patient care. I will be taking a look at nurse fatigue and the impact it has on the nurse’s wellbeing, work, and patient care.
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.
According to Taylor (2008) the definition of nurse is from the meaning of the Latin word nutrix, which means “to nourish”. Nursing has a focus of caring for every patient physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually. To meet the needs of every patient, nurses must take on many roles, but the main role being care giver (Taylor, 2008, p.14). Caring for another person requires many traits, and the most common is compassion. The definition of compassion is “sympathetic consciousness of another’s distress with a desire to alleviate it” (Merriam-Webster dictionary, 2011). Compassion and the desire to nourish may have been deciding factors that would lead one to pursue a career in nursing. Nurses over the span of their career will have extensive exposure to trauma, pain and unfortunate situations. Workplace stressors such as scheduling and increasing workload along with repeated exposure to the hardships of others predisposes caregivers, especially nurses, to develop a unique type of burn out labeled compassion fatigue (Joinson 1992). Compassion fatigue develops when a nurse unintentionally takes on the misfortune, anxiety, pain and trauma of the patients they care for. It is a negative emotional and physical response to the unfortunate situations that can arise in the profession of care giving. The “detrimental effects can include exhaustion, an inability to focus and a decrease in productivity, as well as unhappiness, self-doubt and loss of passion and enthusiasm” (Lester, 2010, p. 11). Compassion fatigue will develop suddenly versus burnout which develops gradually (Boyle, 2011, p. 9). This abrupt onset of symptoms will hinder the nurse’s ability develop a trusting and therapeutic relationship with...
It can be related to feelings of hopelessness and lack of meaning, anxiety, decreased ability to concentrate, irritability, insomnia, emotional numbing, lack of empathy, and escapist activities (such a self-medicating with drugs and alcohol). This is in direct opposition to the idea that nurses would be responsive to an insightful of their clients needs. Dennis Portnoy wrote “Compassion fatigue was often triggered by patient care situations in which nurses believed that their actions would “not make a difference” or “never seemed to be enough”. He further elaborated in the article Burnout and compassion Fatigue that nurses who experienced this syndrome also did so because of systemic issues such as; overtime worked, high patient acuity, high patient census, heavy patient assignments, high acuity, overtime and extra workdays, personal issues, lack of energy and lack of experience (Portnoy, 2011). These issues, interfere with the nurses' ability to identify with the patient and to tune in to important issues and obscure symptoms. Once consideration is that nurses can use Orlando’s theory to identify and address their own needs and respond with the same level of consideration to their own needs in order to prevent a burn out
The article examined many studies conducted to measure stress and burnout in nurses and found that the environment and conditions in the workplace have a great deal to do with the perceived stress levels. In the article, it speaks of the definition of stress as being a negative factor that is perceived to pose a threat to the perceiver. This definition goes on to state that one person may see an event as stressful, while another may view the same situation as exhilarating. The important part of this “new definition” is that we can choose, by manipulation of our attitudes, to view our lives as stress filled or an enjoyable ride. One’s perception is a big factor in workplace stress.
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.
Burnout is a highly unusual type of stress disorder that is essentially characterized by emotional exhaustion, lack of empathy with patients, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishments. The nature of the work that healthcare practitioners perform predisposes them to emotional exhaustion. On the other hand, the lack of empathy towards patients is caused by the nurses feeling that they are underpaid and unappreciated. Numerous researches have associated burnout with the increasing rate of nurse turnover. This paper explores the causes of burnouts in nurses as well as what can be done to prevent the them.
It is written into our ethical guidelines, it is featured in our entry to practice standards and it is perpetuated through imagery of the caring nurse (Appendix 1). And there is no denying compassionate care is good for patient outcomes (CNA, 2010). Yet, the continual depiction of nurse as synonymous with compassion and selflessness, can make it difficult for nurses to come forward or take time off when they are experiencing compassion fatigue. In a CNA (2010) study, nurses expressed ethical distress at coming forward about experiencing compassion fatigue because it conflicted with their ideas of ideal nursing practice (CNA, 2010). Moreover, nurses felt a professional obligation to provide care for those in need despite feeling apathetic or have limited empathy (CNA,
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.
The nursing profession is one of the most physically, emotionally, and mentally taxing career fields. Working long shifts, placing other’s needs before your own, dealing with sickness and death on a regular basis, and working in a high stress environment are all precursors to developing occupational burnout in the nursing profession. Burnout refers to physical, emotional and mental exhaustion, which can lead to an emotionally detached nurse, who feels hopeless, apathetic, and unmotivated. Burnout extends beyond the affected nurse and begins to affect the care patients receive. Researchers have found that hospitals with high burnout rates have lower patient satisfaction scores (Aiken et al 2013). There are various measures that nurses can take
Nurses Joe and Sarah have been working in a medical surgical unit that has been experiencing a nursing shortage, which has led to an increase in the workload. Sarah has been feeling the physical effects of the stress and feels there is a lack of management support, while Joe experiences some feelings of being overwhelmed, but tries to use it as learning experiences. Joe has developed positive methods of coping, while Sarah is quickly heading towards burnout. Implications and Conclusions The information provided in the literature has great implications for practice in many units, including the writers. It is with great hopes that the research published can be presented to the committees on the unit in hopes that some of the workloads can be decreased to help with staffing and retention rates.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how Lewin’s Change theory can be used to effect a change on nurse burnout and its effect on patient safety. Burnout was defined “as a response to chronic work-related stress comprising three components or dimension. Emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment” (Maslach & Jackson, 1981, as cited by Canadas-Dela Fuente, 2015). If not addressed, compromises patient care outcome. Lewis theorized that “the forces that push the system toward change are driving forces, whereas the forces that pull the system away from change are called restraining forces” (Marquis & Huston, 2011, p. 166).
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
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