Answer To: Microsoft Word - PIPNS_UGuide_12Wk_Jly_20.docx Professional Issues Professional Issues - Version 4.1...
Azra S answered on Oct 15 2021
Burnout in Nurses
Table of Contents
Burnout in Nurses 1
Introduction 2
Nurses burnout in Australia 3
Causes for Nurse burnout 4
Literature review 4
Impact on nursing and the health care system 5
Critical analysis of hospital and government policies 6
Other possible solutions 8
Conclusion 10
References 11
Introduction
Nurses are one of the cornerstones of the medical profession, so much so that today, we cannot imagine hospitals without nurses. Nurses can even be said to be the real caretakers of patients. Even though doctors highlight the field, nurses end up taking care of patients, their families and all the chores in between. With such a high burden of work, it is not surprising that nurses face burnout.
The WHO defines Burnout syndrome as one that is characterized by feeling exhausted, having negative thoughts related to job duties and reduced efficiency. While burnout might seem like a ‘mood swing’ or ‘bad day’ when it is consistent over a long period of time, it creates several problems like subpar clinical care, negative patient outcomes, reduced safety, and patient dissatisfaction. Studies have shown that high levels of burnout eventually lead to leaving healthcare jobs placing increased strain on the healthcare system as a whole.
Nurses are often overburdened and face tough working environments. There is always a shortage of nurses when compared to patients and even after providing regular assistance to doctors and taking care of patients, they have to perform routine clerical and sometimes even cleaning tasks. Some nurses are able to handle the pressure, but most don’t. this leads to dissatisfaction and nurse’s turnover, even some going so far as to leaving the profession altogether.
This paper discusses the current policies and their effectiveness in dealing with this issue. It also critically analyses these policies and provides alternative solutions.
Nurses burnout in Australia
Australia has had a significantly low level of nurse turnover in the recent years, but these numbers are changing, and the future is predicted to be even worse. A national survey found that about 32 percent of nurses were considering leaving their profession altogether. The federal government estimates that by 2025 there will be a shortage of about 85000 nursing professionals by 2025 and by about 2030 there will be about 123000 (Health Workforce Australia, 2014)
Observing nurses, it has been found that they are facing increase in intensity of work. About 71% felt that they were being burdened with more work than they could handle.
67% of the nurses complained that they were faced with tough working situations, quick working situations and multiple times in a single day leading to exhaustion (Health Workforce Australia, 2014).
The hospital management and government policies are thus likely to face challenges in staff retention since many nurses have been found to consider leaving not just the job but the entire profession.
Causes for Nurse burnout
Nurses face burnout due to several reasons. First and foremost, is due to heavy work burden. Since nurses have to handle several patients and provide treatment to them, they are also faced with the task of doing menial jobs and this increases the workload on them.
Nurses also express concerns when hospital management ignore their needs. They fear retribution for speaking out and as a result continue to keep their emotions sealed eventually leading to burnout and frustration.
Some other causes of nurse burnout include having inadequate staff levels that leads to nurses having to do everything. When nurses are tasked with excessive administrative tasks and inappropriate skill mix, they develop frustration and anger as well (The Department of Health, 2013).
Literature review
Several studies have been conducted in order to relate the reasons for burnout in nurses. Most of these focussed on high stress clinical care settings and high dependency units (Eleni et al., 2010).
The reason for this burnout among the nursing staffs working in such high stress environment was found to be having to spend a lot of time during their working day in intense interactions with people (İlhan et al, 2008.).
Maslach-Pines (2000) on the other hand suggested that the main reason for burnout was the nature of the work of these departments. Since the work is often physically and emotionally demanding, nurses face stress continuously. There has been a mix of inferences though since some studies show high correlation between stressful work environment and burnout (Schmitz, Neumann & Oppermann 2000) while others don’t (Buunk, Ybema, Zee, Schaufeli & Gibbons 2001).
Studies conducted in more recent years, have shown that organizational stress has been accompanied by workload as a contributing factor to burnout and is found more common cause of the burnout syndrome (Greenglass, Burke & Moore, 2003). However, the question remains as to why some nurses face burnout while others don’t.
This could possibly relate to the personality characteristics of nurses....