Burnout Among Nurses

Running head: BURNOUT IN NURSING PROFESSION 1
BURNOUT AMONG NURSES
Name of Student
Institution Affiliation

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Introduction
Background of the problem
Nursing is classified among the most challenging professions based on its complex
nature. As they go about their duties, nurses experience multiple challenges.
Nurses face issues such as short staffing, office violence, inadequate compensation,
organizational hazards, burnout and overworking. In an attempt to reduce, the operation costs or
deal with nurse’s shortage, health care organizations may require their nurses to work for long
hours through extended shifts. Long working hours in the nursing profession have been
attributed to an increase in the number of medical mistakes fatigue and sometimes-high levels of
burnout. According to a study carried out in 2012, it was found that long working hours in the
nursing profession were associated with a rise in patient dissatisfaction and nurse's burnout levels
(Gooch, 2015). The study also found nurses working for longer hours to be more two and half
more times likely to experience burnout than those working for shorter deadlines. Nurses
working for longer working hours are also more likely to experience job dissatisfaction and more
likely to leave their jobs. On the same note, a study carried out in 2014 identified nurses working
for long hours to be impaired by the inability to recover between shifts, loss of sleep and fatigue
than nurses working for shorter hours. In addition, they were more likely to report decision regret
than nurses working for shorter hours were. This, therefore, makes burnout a serious issue in the
nursing profession (Gooch, 2015).
Statement of research questions
 Why is burnout among nurses a major issue in the nursing profession?
 How do high levels of burnout affect nurses and patients?
 What are the causes of burnout among nurses?

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 In what ways do increased levels of burnout among nurses lead to poor quality of outcomes for
patients?
Relevance/significance of the proposal
Improved patient outcomes are the main area of focus in healthcare organizations. Nurses
have a responsibility to ensure the satisfaction and safety of their patients by carrying out their
responsibilities appropriately. Increased levels of burnout have been found to reduce the
efficiency of nurses hence hampering their ability to improve the outcomes of their patients and
increase rates of satisfaction.
Conceptual framework
This study will have a descriptive conceptual framework. Descriptive research will
describe the various variables relevant to this study.Data for the research will be collected from
various sources after which it will be analyzed to draw conclusions.
Literature review
The burnout concept in the nursing profession
Burnout among nurses is a problem faced by Nurses world over. Burnout does not only
affect nurses but also the patients that they care for. Various studies have established a link
between increased rates of burnout among nurses and increased cases of patient's infections
within the clinical setting. In addition, hospitals with high levels of burnout have been found to
have more numbers of dissatisfied patients. Nursing burnout is, therefore, an issue that has a
widespread impact on not only nurses but also their patients and other individuals seeking care in
various hospitals. Recent statistics of a study carried out in among 2000 nurses in the USA found
15.6% of those sampled to have experienced burnout. Out of the nurses who reported to have
experienced burnout, 50% percent indicated that they did not intend to leave their jobs. For this

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reason resolution of factors leading to burnout among the nursing workforce, need to be an area
of focus (Brusie, 2019).
A psychologist from Germany named Herbert Freudenberger while explaining his
experience with substance users first used the term burnout in 1974. In his coinage of the term
burnout, Herbert used the term to explain the consequences of high ideals and exceeding levels
of stress in helping professionals to cope. Since its coinage in the 1970s, the term has been used
in hundreds of scientific studies (Heinemann & Heinemann, 2017). Harkin and Melby, (2014)
described burnout to be a consequence of the constructs of depersonalization, reduced levels of
personal accomplishment and emotional exhaustion. Research by Van Mol, Kompanje, Benoit,
Bakker & Nijkamp (2015) identified a close linkage between burnout among nurses and
compassion fatigue especially among nurses working in the intensive care units. Compassion
fatigue is the stress experienced by nurses while witnessing and acting upon patients with
extreme levels of suffering. Therefore, the preference of burnout among nurses may lead to cases
of compassion fatigue
A study by Irish medical times in 2018 identified long working shifts of nurses to be one
of the major causes of burnout in the nursing profession. Additionally, the findings from the
research identified increased job dissatisfaction and turnover in the nursing profession as some of
the consequences of burnout. Burnout and high levels of dissatisfaction among nurses may
negatively affect the quality of healthcare as well as the wellbeing and health of nurses (Irish
Medical Times, 2018). A research in some countries in Europe identified 12-hour shifts as a one
of the issues responsible for burnout in the nursing profession (Ring, 2015). However, nurses
identified understaffing and increased workloads as the major contributing factor to increased
cases of burnout. According to the results from the study, 17% of those sampled were found to