Occupational Stress and Burnout among Nurses in Healthcare Settings

Running head: HEALTHCARE
The increase in the occupational stress and burnout among the nurses and decrease in the
nurse retention and poor quality of care under the healthcare settings
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1HEALTHCARE
Introduction
According to the report published by the Health Workforce Australia (2014), the total
number of nursing workforce including registered nurses (RNs) and enrolled nurses (ENs) in
the year 2012 is 331,804. However, this nursing workforce in Australia is alarmingly less in
comparison to the total number of the health service users in Australia. Moreover as per the
statistics stated by the Organizations for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD),
Australia ranks 13th out of other countries registered under OECD like the US, Canada and
Iceland in the domain of nurse density per 100 population. Though the overall registration of
the nursing workforce in Australia is increase, the retention of the nurses is decreasing at a
significant rate. There are several reasons behind a steady decrease in the retention of the
nursing workforce. The current nursing workforce is ageing and there is a dearth of retention
of the newly recruited nursing workforce. The following paper aims to elucidate the
relationship occupational stress and burnout of the nursing professionals in decreasing the
retention of the nursing workforce. The paper will also attempt to focus how the decrease in
the nursing workforce is affecting the overall quality of healthcare. In explaining the effect of
occupational stress over nurse retention, the paper will highlight the structural, political
human resource and symbolic aspects of nurse retention as healthcare organizational factor.
The healthcare problem: Burnout and Occupational Stress among the nursing
professionals
Occupational stress is a significant problem among the healthcare professionals. The
profession of nursing is identified as a healthcare profession that involves high level of stress.
It was elucidated that the increased level of occupational stress or job stress cast a hazardous
impact not only over the health and well-being of the nursing professionals but also reduces
their abilities to satisfy their job demands. Overall it impairs the quality of care and efficacy

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of the healthcare practice (Sharma, Davey, Davey, Shukla, Shrivastava & Bansal, 2014).
Woodhead, Northrop and Edelstein (2016) stated that nursing profession is a stressful
occupation and stress has a significant negative impact over the health, well-being, the level
of job satisfaction. The occupational stress increases the job related burnout leading to
increased level of absenteeism and increase in the nursing turnover that impacts the quality of
patient care. Stress is mainly categorised as an antecedent of the stimulus. Sarafis et al.
(2016) stated that occupational stress has significant healthcare complications. The main
stress factors that give rise to the occupational stress among the nursing professionals include
extended work hours, poor nursing manpower in comparison to the resource, and demanding
nature of the patients’ family members, lack of cooperation coming from the patient,
compassion fatigue and physical labour. Woodhead, Northrop and Edelstein (2016) are of the
opinion that many people can cope up with stress that last for short period of time. However,
coping up with chronic stress is difficulty and it produces a significant psychological and
physiological change.
Poor healthcare outcomes and Occupational stress
Occupational stress and burnout can significantly affect the overall quality of life of
the nursing professionals and thereby reducing the overall quality of care. Caring is defined
as an interpersonal procedure that is guided by the expert nursing skills, increase in the level
of interpersonal sensitivity and development of intimate relationship with the patients under
the use of the effective communication skills. Job-related stress among the nursing
professionals result in loss of compassion towards the patient (compassion fatigue) along
with an increase in the rate of the practice errors and thus reducing the overall quality of life
of the patients while increasing the cost of care and increase in the length of stay at the
hospital (Sarafis et al., 2016).

3HEALTHCARE
The study conducted by Sarafis et al. (2016) highlighted that the women employees of
the public hospital working in the demanding job environment like emergency department or
in the intensive care unit suffer from anxiety symptoms. The extreme workload, strenuous
workplace relationships and poor clinical skills are the accused behind increased level of job
related stress among the nursing professionals. Cross-sectional study conducted by Salam et
al. (2018) under the healthcare settings of Saudi Arabia highlighted that increase in the level
of occupational stress and compassion fatigue among the nursing professional is responsible
for high level of medication error under the healthcare settings. Demanding job role, social
stressors ( lack of balance between the professional and personal life), poor time management
and structural determinants of health (weekend duty calls, compulsory night duties) and poor
remuneration creates compassion fatigue among the nursing professionals and this distracts
their concentration and motivation towards work leading to increased level of medication
errors under the healthcare settings. The condition is alarming under the hospital settings. The
reports published by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare (2017)
reported that medication errors are a significant healthcare concern under the Australian
healthcare setting and the main reason behind this is occupational stress among the nurses.
The medication errors are amounting of US$42 billion loss to Australian economy. This
increase in the economic loss in the Australian healthcare system is further increasing the
burden over the Australian economy and thereby decreasing the overall recruitment of the
trained yet efficient nursing professionals and thus decreasing the nursing strength further.
the pre-test and post-test study conducted by the Elden and Ismail (2016) over 177 in-patients
under the hospital settings showed the importance of reporting of the medication errors under
the hospital settings in order to recognize, design and implement the tailored interventions for
the reduction of the medication errors under the hospital settings and thereby helping to
increase the overall outcome of patients’ care. However, the study also showed that the