NURS 3101 Issues And Trends In Nursing
Question
Role Strain and Burnout in Nursing
Explain two issues that lead to nurse burnout and discuss a solution for each issue.
Think of an experience in your nursing profession where you either felt strain or burnout and how you overcame this event. (Since this is personal experience, you can use first person narration for this portion of your essay).
Answer
Introduction
The occupational phenomenon of burnout is characterized by the incidences of decrease personal and occupational achievement, feelings of exhaustion and lack of personalization, due to the occurrences of excessive workload and occupational strain. The prevalence of strain and burnout in nursing is a phenomena of significant concern, due to its negative implications on the physiological, psychological and emotional platforms of and individual (Fong, 2016).
The following paragraphs of this essay aims to shed light on the prevalence of role strain and burnout in nursing, its effects on the functioning of nurses as well as the treatment of the patients, the potential legal and ethical issues concerned, followed by brief discussions on issues and experiences associated with burnout and the possible solutions for mitigation of the same.
Discussion
Effect of Role Stress and Strain on Nurses
The impact of role stress and strain amongst nurses is associated with a number of negative health complications, the most notable of which include physiological implications in the form of increased fatigue, musculoskeletal pain, headaches, breathing difficulties and gastrointestinal disturbances. Prolonged burnout and lack of treatment of such issues further lead to feelings of illness among nurses and the resultant lack of productivity. Role stress and burnout has also been associated with psychological complications in the form of increased stress, anxiety, irritability and a loss of interest or engagement towards one’s occupational duties (da Silva et al., 2014).
Implications of Patient Care
The prevalence of burnout and role strain among nurses has been documented to yield negative organizational effects such as increased absenteeism which results in further increase of work stress among existing staff members due to the increased demand of workload as compared to the available workforce. Increased absenteeism leads to lack of sufficient workforce tending to a patient, resulting in compromised quality in patient care. Further burnout in nursing has been associated with increased medical errors and lack of productivity, further leading to patients receiving inadequate treatment. Hence burnout in nurses has been associated with reduced patient care quality, negative patient health outcomes and unsatisfactory customer feedback (Koy et al., 2017).
Association of Ethical and Legal Issues
Role strain and burnout among nurses may also disrupt the consideration of legal and ethical issues. Burnout may hamper a nurses productivity, leading to loss of ability to manage moral conflicts, resulting in ethical dilemmas. The increased prevalence of medical errors associated with burnout further raise patient ethical issues due to the associated lack of quality treatment and resultant fatal implications on patient’s health. Prevalence of excessive burnout also raise legal concerns on workplace safety since every clinical organization must comply with Workplace Health and Safety Standards for the purpose of ensuring healthy occupational functioning (Jakimowicz, Perry & Lewis, 2018).
Two Issues of Nursing Burnout and Solutions
One of the reasons that is responsible for causing burnout of the nurses is the length of time the nurses spend at work. Studies have shown that most of the nurses and especially the registered nurses work for almost 12 hours a day that leads to the development of the higher stress levels. With the increase in the role of the nurses from being present at the bedside of the patient to going to the boardroom, the stress of this profession goes on escalating. This combination of the responsibilities might result in the nurse burnout (Hunsaker et al., 2015).
Another issue might be the location which has been stated in a study which showed that about 48% of the nurses mentioned their various roles as their biggest cause of stress in the workplace. The stress of not finishing their work on time causes a significant amount of burnout, which is followed by backaches that is a result of long standing hours and staff shortages (Adriaenssens, De Gucht & Maes, 2015).
In order to avoid nurse burnout, the nurses must learn to put one self first. The nurse should learn to love oneself instead of becoming a slave to the patients or their partners or their children. One should also learn to mange stress and emotions. This needs the nurse to address the growing feelings of stress and grief in order to avoid burnout. One should be able to find someone to confide in after a tough day (Laschinger & Fida, 2014).
Nursing Experience of Strain and Burnout
Most of the time our job becomes handful enough to keep us busy for the day. This on a daily basis makes us disenchanted towards our profession. Eventually I was tired to even complain about it and I stopped even trying to pretend that I was happy looking after the patients. This was also taking a toll on my family life and it difficult for me to draw in inner strength. When I thought about it I realized that this burnout was due to shortage of staffing at work, not being able to care for patients as well as the nurse would like, and finally the feeling that there is no potential advancement.
References
Adriaenssens, J., De Gucht, V., & Maes, S. (2015). Determinants and prevalence of burnout in emergency nurses: a systematic review of 25 years of research. International journal of nursing studies, 52(2), 649-661.
da Silva, R. M., Goulart, C. T., Lopes, L. F. D., Serrano, P. M., Costa, A. L. S., & de Azevedo Guido, L. (2014). Hardy personality and burnout syndrome among nursing students in three Brazilian universities—an analytic study. BMC nursing, 13(1), 9.
Fong, C. M. (2016). Role overload, social support, and burnout among nursing educators. Journal of Nursing Education, 29(3), 102-108.
Hunsaker, S., Chen, H. C., Maughan, D., & Heaston, S. (2015). Factors that influence the development of compassion fatigue, burnout, and compassion satisfaction in emergency department nurses. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 47(2), 186-194.
Jakimowicz, S., Perry, L., & Lewis, J. (2018). Compassion satisfaction and fatigue: A cross-sectional survey of Australian intensive care nurses. Australian Critical Care, 31(6), 396-405.
Koy, V., Yunibhand, J., Angsuroch, Y., & Fisher, M. L. (2017). Relationship between nursing care quality, nurse staffing, nurse job satisfaction, nurse practice environment, and burnout: literature review. International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, 3(8), 1825-1831.
Laschinger, H. K. S., & Fida, R. (2014). New nurses burnout and workplace wellbeing: The influence of authentic leadership and psychological capital. Burnout Research, 1(1), 19-28.
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