(PDF) Burnout Among Nurses

BURNOUT IN NURSES 1
BURNOUT IN NURSES IN THE ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT
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Abstract
For Nurses working in the emergency department, dealing with issues of emotional
trauma is part of their daily routine. This emotional trauma among nurses resulting from their
experience helping or trying to help suffering patients may cause them to experience burnout.
The focus of this Literature review was on accessing the intensity of burnout among Ireland
Nurses working in emergency and accident department. A Number of Registered nurses working
in emergency departments in the country were sampled out. Based on the findings, there is need
to offer support to nurses working in the emergency and accident department to help them cope
with stress factors that are attributed to burnout. These interventions need to be broad because
traumatic experiences experienced by Nurses working in these departments differ hence call for
different approaches to be adopted
Key Words
Nursing, Burnout, depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, Compassion fatigue
Introduction
The complex nature of the Nursing professions makes it one of the most challenging
professions. Nurses experience multiple challenges in the course of disseminating their duties
and responsibilities. Some of the issues that nurses deal with include workplace violence,
workplace hazards, long working hours, short staffing inadequate compensation and burnout. For
Nurses working in accident and emergency department in Ireland, burnout is one of the most
prevalent challenges. Burnout is a work related stress syndrome characterized by loss of
motivation, depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disorders and physical fatigue (Lahana et al.,
2017). Burnout is nowadays considered a global issue affecting healthcare professionals. The

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main causes of burnout among nurses include short staffing or reduction of length of stay by
nurses caused by organization’s attempt to minimize rising operation costs. With the increase in
population and demand for health care services burnout becomes inevitable. Burnout among
Nurses is considered to have a negative impact on performance, quality of care and Nurse’s well
being (Moghaddasi et al., 2013).This paper seeks to explore the concept of Burnout among
Nurses working in Emergency and accident department in Ireland.
Review Objectives
To find out and summarize published scholarly work on burnout among Ireland’s
accident and emergency department Nurses
To Find out the causes of Burnout among Emergency and Accident department’s Nurses
Identify the impact of burnout among Nurses working in accident and emergency
department
Methodology
Searches for the literature review were conducted from MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane
Library collection, PubMed and Embase databases. Search terms used include Burnout
depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, Compassion fatigue and Nursing. January 2008 –
January 2018 were set as the date parameters for the review.
Literature Review
The Burnout Concept in Accident and emergency department
The term was first used by a psychologist Herbert Freudenberger to describe his
experience with substance abusers. According to the scholarly work of (Harkin and Melby,

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2014), the burnout construct is as a consequence of three dimensions characterized as a reduced
personal accomplishment, depersonalization and emotional exhaustion. Compassion fatigue has
been closely linked to burnout among Nurses especially those in emergency and accident
departments. It referees to the stress that nurses go through in an effort to witness and act upon
the immense suffering of patients (Boyle, 2011). (Figley, 2013) argues that although the two
terms, compassion fatigue and burnout are closely related, the likelihood of developing
compassion fatigue is caused by the presence of burnout.
Causes of Burnout among Emergency Irish Nurses
(Healy and Tyrrell, 2011) perceives the impact of stressful experiences to be immense for
Nurses working in the emergency departments. The two also argue that Taking part in the
resuscitation of patients, witnessing deaths, violence or patient’s aggression can cause immense
physical and emotional strain on Nurses (Healy and Tyrrell, 2011).Irrespective of the frequency
of these incidences for the Irish Nurses, they have not become immune to the stress caused by
these experiences. In most cases also, these nurses are not sufficiently prepared to cope with the
consequences of these experiences especially due to inadequate support. A study carried out in
one of Ireland’s regional hospitals found that nurses in the accident and emergency departments
recorded high levels of burnout (Cishahayo, Nankundwa, Sego and Bhengu, 2017).The
prevalence of depersonalization among emergency nurses was also found to be 46% which was
quite high compared to nurses in other departments (Harkin and Melby, 2014).
Findings from the study conducted by (Hooper et al, 2010) however failed to support the
argument that Nurses working in emergency and accident department were at more risk for
burnout compared to nurses working in other inpatient departments. Based on the fact that the
emergency and accident department present quite unique factors compared to other departments,