Understanding Role Stress in Relation to Nurse Burnout A Concept Analysis
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
The nursing profession is notorious for burnout. The place of work, scheduling, compassion fatigue and lack of support all affect the nurses’ risk of becoming burnt out. Nurses and nurse managers should be well educated on the signs of burnout in order to correct it as soon as it becomes an issue. There are many ways for nurse managers to help prevent burnout amongst their staff and there are significant benefits in reducing the burnout rate. Peery (2010, pg. 53) summarized nursing as:
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
Team Name & Number: JABEER-J, Team 6
Topic: Preventing burnout in newly graduated nurses
Issue: Burnout is prevalent among newly graduated nurses, affecting 1 of 5 nurses in the first three years of their career (Rudman & Gustavsson, 2011, p.293). Our goal is to prevent burnout among newly graduated nurses by minimizing the psychological distress they experience in their first few years as a nurse.
Background:
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).
Burnout in nursing is a convoluted and significant matter that must be acknowledged and addressed to preserve the quality and longevity of the nursing profession. With varying definitions of the term, it becomes important to identify and understand the factors and dynamics that have bearing on the nurse’s intrapersonal beliefs, emotional well-being, and ultimately the patient care they provide. Once these components are recognized, it is just as imperative to offer potential resolutions to meet this challenge. Aside from simple, personal actions that the nurse can take, such as exercise and rest, there are certain measures that if fulfilled by the nursing leadership staff will hold substantial weight when it comes to contending with burnout.
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.
The 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
Life is too short to be stressed and burned out. There are several ways to help detect and reduce stress. Leaders should be aware of key tips and ideas on stress and burnout so they can prevent it from happening to their co-workers before it becomes a major issue. Leaders can avoid stress and burnout in their department by regaining balance and reassessing priorities for each individual. They should help support and encourage employees, and keep teamwork at the top of their priorities. Leaders should be aware that stress and burnout will affect them at some point, but should always remember why they became a nurse and not give up on a career that they love.
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.