Nurse Burnout Persuasive Essay

Inconsistent nurse-patient ratios are a concern in hospitals across the nation because they limit nurse’s ability to provide safe patient care. Healthcare professionals such as nurses and physicians agree that current nurse staffing systems are inadequate and unreliable and not only affect patient health outcomes, but also create job dissatisfaction among medical staff (Avalere Health, 2015). A 2002 study led by RN and PhD Linda Aiken suggests that "forty percent of hospitals nurses have burnout levels that exceed the norms for healthcare workers" (Aiken, Clarke, Sloane, Sochalski & Silber, 2002). These data represents the constant struggle of nurses when trying to provide high quality care in a hospital setting.

Additionally, the study found that a high patient to nurse ratio resulted in greater emotional exhaustion and greater job dissatisfaction amongst nurses. Each additional patient per nurse was associated with a 23% increase in the likelihood of nurse burnout, and a 15% increase in the likelihood of job dissatisfaction. Moreover, 40% of hospital nurses have burnout levels exceeding the normal level for healthcare workers, and job dissatisfaction among hospital nurses is four times greater than the average for all US workers. 43% of nurses involved in this study that reported job dissatisfaction intended to leave their job within the upcoming year. (Aiken et al.)

The issue of healthcare personnel scarcity continues to be an ongoing challenge across the globe. Invariably, nurses are at the pinnacle in the delivery of quality care in any healthcare setting. The ever-increasing demands for care stem from a patient populace that is emergent, growing older and needing more care due to the escalating shift in their disease process. Hence, nurses are torn between balancing an overloaded schedule, working extra hours and maintaining astuteness and professionalism. This transcends to compromised patient care, nursing burnout makes it difficult for them to experience the rewards of caring for patients in the way they had expected; thereby, adding to the shortage of

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

According to Hunt (2009), feeling overworked is the number one cause for nurse turnover in health care settings. Other reasons at the top of the list include, lack of support from employers and few opportunities for advancement. Due to the nursing shortage, staffing has been an issue in many healthcare facilities. As a result, units are consistently short staffed, causing nurses to feel overworked and unsupported by management. Cline (2004) highlighted nurse frustration when a participant in the study stated, “When you’re constantly short-staffed and feel your managers aren’t supporting you at least by saying, ‘Thank you, I know you must’ve had a hard

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

A nurse’s typical day isn’t without stress; it is usually a lot of complex planning, critical thinking, time management, an abundance of communications with all departments of the hospital, and documenting events that have happened throughout the day on their entire patient assignment. “Nurses who are mandated following the completion of their regular shift are often ill-equipped to continue working. They have not planned for that situation with: proper advanced rest, arrangements for

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

Nurses are especially vulnerable to several related effects of stress, such as burnout, job dissatisfaction, increased interpersonal problems, increased health complaints, disturbances in sleep patterns, as well as clinical depression and anxiety (Villani, Grassi, Cognetta, Toniolo, Cipresso, & Riva, 2013). The potential for stress can be reduced by resolving difficulties in the workplace promptly, addressing staff shortages, turnover and absenteeism, and developing clear objectives and plans (McIntosh, & Sheppy, 2013). Learning to manage and reduce stress by developing insight and coping strategies will help to maintain and promote nursing integrity and consistent patient care (McIntosh, & Sheppy, 2013).

Stressful work environments, long work hours and inadequate sleep all contribute to an increase in physical and mental exhaustion amongst nurses. Typically, people choose nursing as a career to help others and to make a difference in their lives, without realizing the number of duties this career demands. Nurses may suffer in silence when they are experiencing stress. The effects can impact safe and reliable care by decreasing job satisfaction, decreasing productivity, causing poor personal health, and compromising patient care. Many facilities would benefit from implementing evidence-based strategies to address nurse fatigue and 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

“Burnout has been widely studied in the health service profession, and nursing is recognized as one of the occupations with the highest burnout prevalence rates” (Harkin & Melby, 2014, p. 152). Nursing burnout affects many nurses in the profession in one way or another. In the nursing world, a typical shift length is now twelve hours or longer. This shift length has changed from the past in which nurses worked a normal shift of eight hours. While there are benefits and disadvantages to each of these shifts, there has to be a regulation of total hours worked in a week. Nurses who work at the bedside of critically ill patients witness marked human suffering (Sacco, Ciurzynski, Harvey, &

It is likely that most people have heard about the nursing shortage for years now, and perhaps they believe it’s been fixed. However, the nursing profession is experiencing a reoccurring deficiency. According to Brian Hansen, (2002), there was a nation wide shortage in 2001 of 126,000 full-time registered nurses, but the shortage will surge to 808,000 by 2020 if something isn't done. This pattern is a persisting cycle of high vacancies followed by layoffs and a high over supply of registered nurses. Various factors contribute to the lack of nurses within the health care facilities, but today’s shortages are a little different. Many feel that this scarcity is severe and long-drawn-out. The four major issues contributing to

American Nurses Association defines nursing as “the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and population”( Potter,P.,& Perry, A. 2005,1-5). Thus making nursing dynamic and ever changing. However, when nursing