The focus of every health care professional is the patient and the goal is to return the patient to optimum health where the patient can be independent. When the patient’s safety is being compromised it’s everyone’s job to fix the problem and make sure that it doesn’t happen again. However, there’s a dark side to nursing. The nurse is one of the few health care workers that have the most daily contact with the patient. The nurse plays a very important role in the patients care from teaching to simply being a listener while withholding any judgement. When the nurse to patient ratio isn’t balanced, it causes nurse burnout. Nurse burnout is when the nurse becomes “physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted” (Michigan, S. S. (n.d.). News. …show more content…
(n.d.). Retrieved August 16, 2017, from http://www.ananursespace.org/blogs/oretha-johnson/2013/09/06/what-is-nurse-burnout?ssopc=1). He used it to describe the consequences of severe stress and the high expectation of being perfect experienced by people working in professions that require the person to constantly be helping some. “Doctors and nurses, for example, who sacrifice themselves for others, would often end up being “burned out” – exhausted, listless, and unable to cope” (What is "nurse burnout?". (n.d.). Retrieved August 16, 2017, from http://www.ananursespace.org/blogs/oretha-johnson/2013/09/06/what-is-nurse-burnout?ssopc=1). The term is not only used for people working in professions that requires them to constantly be helping someone. Burnout has become a regular thing across every career. Burnout is categorized as physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion per National Nurses United. Many have the assumption that burnout and stress is the same. However, there’s a big difference stress is characterized by engagement meanwhile burnout is characterized by disengagement. A nurse that’s disengaged into what he or she is doing can cause many problems or complications. With one simple mistake a nurse makes can kill a patient on a worst-case scenario, which can cause the hospital or health care facility many legal problems. Burnout can be caused by …show more content…
Nurses driven by a desire to care for others were found to be more vulnerable to nursing burnout, according to research by the American Sociological Association. Many nurses love their job they start to neglect their friends, family, and most importantly themselves. Over time the more the nurse starts to only worry about the patients meanwhile they’re losing all their close relationships with their friends and family. While worrying about the stress of losing all close ties the nurse must also worry about the about the patient. Which leads to the nurse becoming fatigued and causes nurse
Click here to unlock this and over one million essays
Show MoreThe nursing profession has often been dubbed as the backbone of the healthcare system because nurses are first in line when it comes to the patient’s medical care. Hence, nursing quality is one of the major factors that affects the well-being of the patient. Nurses and other healthcare professionals are expected to possess the characteristics of caring and empathy towards their patients. However, when there is too much care for patients and too little for one’s self, a negative effect to the overall health of the caregiver may develop. Additionally, nursing work is seen to be strenuous and challenging due to its need for specialization, complexity, and requirement to handle emergency situations (Benoliel et al., 1990; Su, 1993). Nurses, in effect, may feel overworked, underappreciated, frustrated and emotionally exhausted. These stressors that healthcare providers undergo are described by different terms including compassion fatigue, caregiver burnout and other related issues. In this paper, the nature of compassion fatigue and caregiver burnout are first defined and discussed. The symptoms as well as the coping strategies for these phenomena are then explained.
I have seen how challenging and demanding the nursing profession can be; nurses often are required to work long hours that are physically and emotionally demanding. Nurses usually attend to multiple patients, while simultaneously complying with the constant requests from attending physicians, as well as responding to emergency situations and engaging all the urgent matters that demand their attention. The majority of this
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
Nurses are the largest and the most trusted professional group in the health care system. They are highly educated and skilled in their areas of practice. However, today’s nurses are experiencing an ever increasing workload, which negatively impacts their ability to deliver safe patient care (Berry & Curry, 2012). This paper explores four published journals that report on survey results on nursing workload and their direct correlation with patient care outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to address the ongoing nursing workload issues and explore the reasons behind it.
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.
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
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...
That is why self care is important for nurses, we are at risk for both professional fatigue and burnout. Self care strategies can help the nurse when faced with stress. It can also help reduce the physical and emotional impact stress has on us. Three strategies that I chose to promote self-care is: (1) recognizing that you have a problem, (2) be open for help, and (3) keep work and home life separate (Sanford-Brown, 2014). Recognizing that you have a problem or burnout, often is recognized by others before you may realize it (Sanford-Brown, 2014). As a nurse, you must remain truthful with yourself and keep an open mind to criticism. Be open to help, burnout is a well-recognized problems within the nursing profession. Reach out for help by talking with coworkers or your manager. My organization offers access to counseling services to their employee, to assist during stressful times. The key to self-care, is keeping your work and home life separate. This is one major causes of professional fatigue which is losing sight of the boundaries between personal and work life. This can be especially challenging for nurses, that is facing difficult personal stresses. “You and your family deserves at least as much of your attention as you give your patients, but that is impossible if you can't separate the two worlds” (Sanford-Brown,
Majority of nurses start their jobs being excited and eager to help patients physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. These nurses intend to provide the best patient care available. Unfortunately, these caring nurses may soon become victims of the continuing stress of meeting all of the needs of patients and their families. This stress can lead men and women in the nursing field to quickly find themselves experiencing compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue has been defined as a combination of physical, emotional, and spiritual depletion associated with caring for patients (Lombardo & Eyre, 2011). Often times people confuse this concept with burnout. A nurse must be both compassionate and
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
In relation to nursing, burnout can be described as a, “psychological state that is characterized by the following symptoms: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a decreased perception of personal accomplishment” (Stewart & Terry, 2014, p.37). Burnout can affect anyone, but it is widely prevalent among nurses. This is evident through the percentage of turnover rates in 2016 for registered nurses. According to the National Healthcare Retention and RN Staffing Report it states, “turnover for bedside RNs ranges from 8.8% to 37.0%. The national average RN turnover rate is 17.2%, a 0.8% increase from 2014, with the median being 16.9%” (Colosi, B., 2016, p.8). Burnout in the nursing profession not only affects nurses, but it also affects the
Medical and Healthcare Professionals. Burnout affects the medical and healthcare field, which includes physicians, nurses, and other personnel. According to Edwards and Dirette (2010), healthcare professionals are known as the profession with the highest risk for stress and burnout. Research has depicted that ICU physicians cope with high levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and decreased personal achievement (Guntupalli, Wachetel, Mallampalli, & Surani, 2014). Moreover, research has shown a high prevalence of burnout among physicians, which includes one-third of physicians that have experienced burnout (Romani & Ashkar, 2014). Burnout is often caused by the physician’s inability to balance their personal and professional life (Romani & Ashkar, 2014). In addition, 45.8% of physicians report having at least one symptom of burnout (Romani & Ashkar, 2014). Among ICU physicians, the common causes of burnout include overwhelming and difficult work, being powerless to change, and making the impossible happen (Guntupalli, Wachetel, Mallampalli, & Surani, 2014). Furthermore, burnout increases medical errors and decreases job
Happell, Martin, and Pinikahana (2007) also argue in their research that “despite the strength of discourse and debate in relation to stress and burnout in psychiatric nursing, limited research has been conducted in this area” (p. 40). Although a handful of studies (Cañadas et al., 2013, Dickinson and Wright, 2008; Happell, Martin, and Pinikahana, 2007, Ewers et al., 2001) agree that burnout reduces employee effectiveness which can compromise quality of care provided for the patient, there is still little research and support in this
Maytum, J. , Bielski Heiman, M & Garwick, A. (2004). Compassion fatigue and burnout in nurses who work with children with chronic conditions and their families. JOURNAL OF PEDIATRIC HEALTH CARE, 18(4), 171-179.