Burnout Amongst Nurses: Case Study

Running head: REPORT
Burnout amongst nurses
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................2
Defining the concept of burnout......................................................................................................2
Reasons for burnout among nursing staff........................................................................................2
Impact of burnout............................................................................................................................3
Recommendations............................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

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Executive summary
In recent times, nursing has become one of the most demanding and challenging
professions. Nursing professionals form an integral component of the healthcare team. The
profession demands hard work, devotion, and skill from all nursing personnel, and in order to
become successful they must demonstrate qualities of interpersonal skill, commitment, and
presence of mind (Glerean et al., 2017). The basic purpose of this particular literature report is to
analyse the cause of nursing burnout and the impact that it creates. The report argues that if
burnout amongst nurses remains unattended and unchecked, it might result in business and
operational challenges for healthcare organisations.
Defining the concept of burnout
According to the World Health Organisation (2019) occupational burnout refers to a
syndrome that is a direct consequence of occupation associated stress, predominantly
characterized by feelings of exertion or energy depletion, increase in mental disturbance and
distress, cynicism associated to one's occupation, feelings of negativism, and decreased
professional efficiency. Burnout has also been described by Christina Maslach as
depersonalization, emotional exhaustion, or decreased feelings of work associated individual
accomplishments (Maslach, 2017). Burnout amongst the nurses is described by disengagement in
the profession, and not only does it undermine motivation of the nursing professionals to care for
their patients, but also results in feelings of hopelessness and misery.

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Reasons for burnout among nursing staff
According to Chin et al. (2019) several nurses cite long working hours as the primary
reason for exhaustion and fatigue. The nursing profession in majority of the countries is being
subjected to an increase in the annual rate of turnover due to labour migration, unattractive
working condition, and acute workload, which has eventually resulted in a shortage of
experienced and skilled nurses, thereby increasing the time that the existing nursing staff have to
spend on their duty (Haddad & Toney-Butler, 2019). Working for such long hour results in poor
work-life integration and increases fatigue. Additionally, it decreases the capability of the nurses
to deliver top-notch care to the patients, and results in greater chances of committing errors in
nursing thereby contributing to burnout. As claimed by White et al. (2019) majority of the
nursing professionals report the presence of an unaccommodating and judgmental working
environment that prevents them from implementing their knowledge and clinical expertise in
their occupation. Poor working environment is primarily characterized by conflict in the
management, absence of teamwork, and poor leadership, all of which make the nurses more
vulnerable to suffer from burnout.
With the implementation of healthcare technology and the expectations that people have
from nurses to deliver excellent quality care, their capability to accomplish their responsibilities
become difficult, thus leading to frustration and inefficiency in performing their duty up to the
standards. Looking after sick and terminally ill patient’s day in and day out also adds to the stress
of the nurses, and leads to the build-up of grief over time, which affects their personal life (Wu et
al., 2016). These negative emotions increasingly wear down the nurses, and trigger burnout when
they are no longer able to cope with death and sickness.

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Impact of burnout
Stressed out and exhausted nurses have been found to demonstrate an increase likelihood
of making poor decisions during delivery of care, since stress create some major impact on
clinical decision making. Nursing burnout has also been correlated to high incidence of hospital
acquired infections and medical errors. Findings from a study where 32% nurses were found to
report signs of emotional exhaustion, there were 14% reported infection, 11% medication errors
and 5% patient falls in the hospital (Nantsupawat et al., 2016). Nurses who suffered from
burnout start manifesting signs and symptoms of lack of empathy towards their patients, become
insensitive, show little or no compassion, and also appear rude with their patients. This
eventually prevents individuals from seeking clinical treatment from the organisation in the
future, thus affecting patient satisfaction and reputation of the healthcare organization
(Berkowitz, 2016).
With a shortage of staff across hospitals, the nursing professional are expected to work
overtime for addressing the issues, which results in an augmented patient to nurse ratio, as a
consequence evoking negative implications. An increase patient to nurse ratio decreases the time
that are they previously devoted to each patient, by this means increasing the chances of patients
suffering from injuries, infections, delayed care, or being sent home without sufficient discharge
instructions, thus exacerbating the health complications and requiring the need of re-admission
(Liu et al., 2018). Nurse burnout also causes turnover, which is extremely expensive for
healthcare organization, since an enormous amount is spent every year in the enrolment,
schooling, and retention of the nurses (Boamah & Laschinger, 2016). It also creates detrimental
influence on the complete workforce by affecting associations with the team members, and
resulting in strained and uncomfortable relationships in the working environment

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Recommendations
In order to address the issue of nursing burnout, the following strategies must be adopted:
 A core component to a decreasing nursing burnout is to prioritise authentic leadership
that would provide the much needed support to the nurses, and encourage transparency in
a team. An authentic leadership would help in recognising burnout at a much earlier time,
and would effectively address job stress, before it affects the nurses (Thomas, Bantz &
McIntosh, 2019).
 Identifying the health care facilities that are most affected by nursing burnout will also
help in customising wellness opportunities, and understanding the factors that result in
distress among the nursing professionals.
 Implementation of a positive wellness program for the employees will also address their
psychological issues and major concerns. Team building activities, counselling groups,
and exercise incentives will not only decrease their burnout, but will also reduce their
stress and negative feelings (Quan et al., 2019).
Conclusion
To conclude, burnout is one of the major consequences of stress among nursing
professionals and extends beyond the major feelings of weariness or tiredness related to the
occupation. It encompasses mental, emotional, and physical exertion, occurring due to prolonged
and excessive stress, and creates an impact on the personal and professional life of the
nurse, eventually affecting the healthcare organisations were they work. Nurses who suffer from
burnout ultimately leave their profession, which results in huge turnover. This calls for the need

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of addressing the major factors that lead to burnout among nurses like long work hours, poor
work environment, and inability to cope with death and sickness, and greater workloads.

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References
Berkowitz, B. (2016). The patient experience and patient satisfaction: measurement of a complex
dynamic. The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 21(1).
Boamah, S. A., & Laschinger, H. (2016). The influence of areas of worklife fit and work‐life
interference on burnout and turnover intentions among new graduate nurses. Journal of
Nursing Management, 24(2), E164-E174.
Chin, W. S., Chen, Y. C., Ho, J. J., Cheng, N. Y., Wu, H. C., & Shiao, J. S. (2019).
Psychological work environment and suicidal ideation among nurses in Taiwan. Journal
of Nursing Scholarship, 51(1), 106-113.
Glerean, N., Hupli, M., Talman, K., & Haavisto, E. (2017). Young peoples' perceptions of the
nursing profession: An integrative review. Nurse Education Today, 57, 95-102.
Haddad, L. M., & Toney-Butler, T. J. (2019). Nursing shortage. In StatPearls [Internet].
StatPearls Publishing.
Liu, X., Zheng, J., Liu, K., Baggs, J. G., Liu, J., Wu, Y., & You, L. (2018). Hospital nursing
organizational factors, nursing care left undone, and nurse burnout as predictors of patient
safety: A structural equation modeling analysis. International journal of nursing
studies, 86, 82-89.
Maslach, C. (2017). Burnout: A multidimensional perspective. In Professional burnout (pp. 19-
32). Routledge.

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Nantsupawat, A., Nantsupawat, R., Kunaviktikul, W., Turale, S., & Poghosyan, L. (2016). Nurse
burnout, nurse‐reported quality of care, and patient outcomes in Thai hospitals. Journal
of Nursing Scholarship, 48(1), 83-90.
Quan, S. F., Weaver, M. D., Barger, L. K., O'Brien, C. S., Viyaran, N., Qadri, S., & Czeisler, C.
A. (2019). 0996 Interim Findings from a Sleep Health and Wellness Program to Reduce
Occupational Burnout. Sleep, 42(Supplement_1), A401-A401.
Thomas, C. M., Bantz, D. L., & McIntosh, C. E. (2019). Nurse faculty burnout and strategies to
avoid it. Teaching and Learning in Nursing, 14(2), 111-116.
White, E. M., Aiken, L. H., Sloane, D. M., & McHugh, M. D. (2019). Nursing home work
environment, care quality, registered nurse burnout and job dissatisfaction. Geriatric
Nursing.
World Health Organization. (2019). Burn-out an "occupational phenomenon": International
Classification of Diseases. Retrieved from
https://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/burn-out/en/
Wu, S., Singh-Carlson, S., Odell, A., Reynolds, G., & Su, Y. (2016, July). Compassion fatigue,
burnout, and compassion satisfaction among oncology nurses in the United States and
Canada. In Oncol Nurs Forum (Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. E161-E169).