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Nurse Burnout: Culminating Argument

Almar Lim

West Coast University

CAPS 401 General Education Capstone

Prof. Connor Mautner

April 19, 2020

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Abstract

Occupational stress is a significant issue that affects many professionals in the healthcare

sector, such as nurses, despite their demanding role in the healthcare industry. Some of the

burnout characteristics include emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced self-

efficiency. This paper aims at analyzing burnout by looking into its severity by utilizing multiple

perspectives of inquiry. It also seeks to raise awareness regarding burnout syndrome and make

recommendations that can foster a safe working environment. Nurse residency programs (NRP)

in numerous organizations indicated a strong potential to transform new graduates’ professional

development, including high-quality patient care. Despite such approaches, additional research is

necessary to synchronize newly licensed nurses’ residency programs effectively.

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Introduction – Nurse Burnout

A Look into Burnout & Potential Solution

Nurses and other medical professionals are committed to delivering the best healthcare to

patients. However, challenges such as a never-ending list of tasks or challenging assignments are

some of many examples of the complex nature in nursing. The overwhelming stressors in the

work environment are easily dismissed and unattended to, leading to an increased risk of

compromising patients’ safety, satisfaction, and treatment outcomes in addition to their own. As

a result, burnout in nurses, or to be more specific, in new graduate nurses in an acute hospital

setting is becoming increasingly prevalent. The majority of the new graduate nurses are

inexperienced with minimal exposure and vulnerability to reality. This exposes them to a

considerable risk of suffering emotional exhaustion from their workplace.

Factors such as improper work-life balance, emotional strain, sense of insufficiency,

which commonly leads to complete fatigue. To acquire clinical expertise and self-confidence,

new graduate nurses require supportive mentorship/guidance, education, and, most importantly,

an environment that facilitates both professional and personal development. Therefore, for the

future of the nursing profession, raising awareness of burnout and becoming an immediate

change that is needed by employing nurse residency programs (NRPs) and numerous other

interventions.

Nurse Burnout: Scientific Perspective

The effects of burning out to the body take effect in a procedural process. In nurses, the

syndrome affects the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of their lives. According to

studies, burnout syndrome is directly associated with higher risks of cardiovascular diseases.
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These are diseases such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, coronary artery diseases and metabolic

syndrome (Salvagioni et al., 2017). The endocrine system becomes exhausted due to continuous

activities, which include blood pressure and increased heart rate. The result is the deteriorated

health of a nurse. Another research has shown that burnout is more prominent in the analysis of

diabetes and hypercholesterolemia (Obradovic, Obradovic, & Skoro, 2013). Due to perennial

stress, the nurses find themselves engaging in poor lifestyle and poor nutrition as well as lack of

physical exercise. In other cases, the nurses lack adequate time to sleep and rest and consume

much more substance than it was previously. These behaviors further complicate Their already

deteriorated health.

The research further revealed that burnout also impacted the psychological aspect of the

nurse's life. In medical practitioners, it affects their emotional, physical and mental state

(Obradovic, Obradovic, & Skoro, 2013). In the study, it was shown that there was an increased

rate of insomnia. It was also revealed that nurses struggle to fall asleep and also maintain sleep

for about half an hour daily. The possibility of having adverse health conditions in these nurses is

further complicated by the unhealthy behaviors of the nurses and lack of sleep. Headaches are

also experienced due to psychological stress.

There are differences between burnout and depression, as opposed to the reference by

many as being the same. The burnout that happens in the workplace, however, has the possibility

of causing depression to the individual. In most studies, it was shown that burnout was a key

indicator of depression in individuals (Salvagioni et al., 2017). Another research shows that

having a negative attitude coupled with exhaustion and self-doubt, were crucial elements in

propagating depressive signs. Other factors that led to depressive symptoms included the use of

antidepressants continuously, which was notably more prone in men (Obradovic, Obradovic, &
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Skoro, 2013). It can, therefore, be concluded that the effects of burnout syndrome are so

detrimental to both the psychological and physical well being of an individual. This is due to the

complications that the conditions bring to individual nurses. These complications are most likely

to threaten the life of the nurse.

Nurse Burnout: Mathematical/Analytical Perspective

Currently, there is a shortage of nurses in any economy. There are various causes of the

deficit being experienced. One of these factors is that there is inefficient management in the

nursing field, making the nurses keep off. Another factor is the high turnover rates, which can be

as a result of the management issues in the nursing field. The current cultures in the workplace

do not encourage the nurse's ether. Due to nurse burnout, there is a high turnover rate in the area.

In the case of registered nurses, the incidence rate being experienced is as high as 70 % (Paiva,

Canario, Paiva, & Goncalves, 2017). Entry-level nurses are the most vulnerable to turnover.

When a nurse is burnt out, their performance reduces due to fatigue and their quality care to

patients ultimately reduces. Burnout state is propagated by factors such as bullying in the

workplace, increased demands in the workplace and a stressing environment. The management

of the organization can, therefore, implement modifications and adjustments to address this state.

High staff turnover may also result from a lack of knowledge on how to adjust and

prevent the possibility of burnout. It is the mandate of the management to ensure that the

workplace environment has sufficient security such that nurses can provide their services

securely. In a study conducted, it is a requirement for nurses to have the knowledge and

interpersonal awareness to persevere and commit to emotional health (Paiva, Canario, Paiva, &

Goncalves, 2017). It is challenging to have a nurse who is unsettled and stressed. It is a challenge

for such a nurse to provide quality care to patients. Therefore, it is the responsibility of a nurse to
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attend to their emotional needs. A nurse should prioritize the completion of tasks assigned in the

hospitals.

Nurses are also exposed to bullying in their workplaces. It is especially familiar to new

graduates (Salvagioni et al., 2017). The emphasis on transparent management would, therefore,

be a core in the nursing field. The treatment of staff members in the nursing field should be

based on equality. They should also be provided with the necessary support or guidance. To

achieve this, nurses should be allocated enough resources that come in the form of support

groups and therapy. The therapy should be made available by the organizations to promote the

wellness of the nurses.

Nurse Burnout: The Cultural Perspective

Various social standards that exist in the nursing calling today are legitimately instituted

to counter the increment the pace of turnover in new graduate attendants. Presently in the

condition of the medicinal services, new alumni attendants face an assortment of difficulties that

sway their effective progress into the genuine nursing world. These worries incorporate an

absence of coaches, decent generational variety in the workforce, execution of nervousness, and

harassing. Another social standard is the medical attendants' dread of losing their employment or

engaging in contention with organization/partners while supporting for self and starting change

just as their powerlessness to adjust their expert and individual lives. This culture is the essential

motivation behind why the issue of medical caretaker burnout continues in the present medicinal

services framework. Besides, the social standards in nursing practice likewise assume an

excellent job in the exacerbating burnout issue.

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In the first place, the critical contrast in age among attendants assumes an indispensable

job in the working environment harassing. Many experienced or persons born after WW2

medical attendants will, in general, be unwelcoming to section level medical attendants or the

recent college grads on occasion. Attendants will remain in general harassers to keep up control

of their workplace making it hard for the effectively self-questioning new alumni medical

caretakers to pick up the certainty or mental fortitude to support themselves (Hofler, 2016, p.

135). Without viable procedures for easing/help from the crippling, medical attendants will keep

on confronting difficulties in both their expert and individual lives. For an extremely prolonged

stretch of time, a political crack that lines the calling is obvious, which foundations unreasonable

remaining burdens, wrong responsibility, and institutional barrenness (Ebright, 2014, p. 4). The

executives must comprehend that new alumni need time and legitimate direction to get the

essential advanced aptitudes just as proficiently rehearsing as an individual from the group.

Beginning from school/preparing to the work environment, medical attendants are

educated and molded to perform and give in an institutionalized manner. Scala and Drummond

(2016) records the two prime orders in medical attendants: (1) tolerant starts things out, and (2)

never show shortcoming. The first prime order stays in quite a while's subliminal quality, where

it is easy for attendants to accomplish more than what they can do with regards to persistent

consideration. Be that as it may, medical attendants will, in general, excuse the way that the

capacity to think about patients is completely subject to their prosperity. This is a huge reason for

pressure and burnout in most of the attendants. The second prime order that the book records

clarifies is that medical attendants direct in a "fighter style endurance process" (Scala and

Drummond, 2016, p. 40). Because of the power and span of the instruction procedure, medical

caretakers are trained not to show shortcomings or feelings to look after demonstrable skills.
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This represses the capacity to perceive and take care of their needs that are, once more, required

to work. These two mandates are a social standard in the nursing practice that prompts passionate

weariness.

Nurse Burnout: The Ethical Perspective

Burnout among nurses, particularly among new alumni attendants, is a serious worry for

the present and future human services. Morals are utilized in the clinical field to manage social

insurance experts towards fitting, noble work on with respect to understanding consideration.

Morals in nursing are a difficult possibility of the calling where it remembers dilemmas for

commitments, obligations/jobs, and outcomes (Mandal et al., 2016, p. 5). Insights uncover in

excess of 200,000 patients terminate because of avoidable clinical mischief, with one of every

three conceded patients in the emergency clinics experience an antagonistic occasion from care

(Mensik and Nickitas, 2015). Attendants face moral difficulties in the day by day practice of

value care that, in the long run, bargains both uprightness and wellbeing for everybody engaged

with expanded occurrences of patient fall or blunders with the prescription organization. There

are various ways that the cost, authority, and other control matters add to burnout in medical

caretakers and their absence of help just as assets.

In the first place, understaffing, while at the same time authorizing top-notch persistent

consideration and working at their own expense, is getting predominant in most of the

emergency clinics or other clinical offices (Ulrich et al., 2010, p. 30). Moreover, an expansion in

a medical caretaker's outstanding task at hand raised the probability of dangerous occasions or

mortality in patients inside 30 days of confirmation by seven percent (Aiken et al., 2014).

Frequently clinics spare a lot of cash for understaffing medical attendants each move. Despite the

fact that the territory of California, just as thirteen different states, have enhanced a law for
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nurture to-quiet proportions (Stratchen-Hall, 2017, p. 15), the absence of staff is proceeding to

put nurture in both good and moral problems busy working. The levels of popularity from the

working environment lead attendants to be exhausted both intellectually and genuinely. The

immediate connection of medical caretaker weariness and patient consideration is clear that

further builds the paces of avoidable mischief.

Burnout is likewise regularly seen over the calling because of the enthusiastic part of the

occupation that opens medical caretakers to uncontrollable degrees of stress, resolute strategies,

ill-advised work assignments, insufficient preparing, low pay, and complex patient needs

(Ahanchian et al., 2015, p. 262). Different hindrances from the association keep medical

caretakers from playing out their essential obligations that are basic in persistent security,

fulfillment, and positive results. Despite the physical weariness, new graduates nurses battle to

oversee and take care of the enthusiastic trouble from work. Because of the absence of assets and

backing from different partners just as the association, they are foundationally depleted and

disheartened to seek after as social insurance proficient in the clinical field.

Moreover, the board neglects to satisfy guarantees that were made during the underlying

employing process. The decreased upkeep on staff has expanded disappointment in nurses and

further added to the burnout. The subsequent impact of inspired medical attendants being not

able to seek after and flourish their energy and aspiration in the working environment drove

numerous to plan or leave the earth in a scan for different chances (Gutsan et al., 2018). Indeed,

it is a pressing issue for an adjusted national procedure/plan to advance and authorize a certified

workforce.
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Conclusion & Solutions

Confidently, nurses play a vital role in the health care system. However, lack of a high-

quality work environment exposes them to many problems, one of them being burnout. As a

result, a majority of nurses fall into a dilemma dealing with the consequences of being burned

out. Burnout syndrome consists of symptoms of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion that

is beyond their ability to cope with effectively. In other words, it is continuing to be a severe

problem that impacts the nurse and everyone that is involved, including the patients. New

interventions to raise awareness through education and training with continuous monitoring &

reassurance of support regarding burnout in new graduate nurses is the initial step to prevent or

cope with burnout.

A transformation in the standard of nursing practice by acknowledging and implementing

needed modifications provides a safe, enabling work environment for all individuals who are

involved. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) and the U.S. Department

of Labor serve the shared mission of addressing serious hazards to promote nurses’ right to

safety in the healthcare settings where they practice daily by ensuring high-quality nursing care.

OSHA is committed to investigate and detain facilities for hazardous practices and violations of

safety standards. The agency also provides the nurses’ rights to file a formal complaint via phone

call, mail, or online directly when lacking persistent safety culture within the workplace.

As mentioned in the ethical perspective of burnout, the lack of support from management

and leaders profoundly impact the nurses’ disposition. For this reason, the transformational

leadership style should be incorporated into the workplace amongst charge nurses, preceptors,

and experienced colleagues to motivate and inspire new nurses to enhance their compassion to

modify current cultures in nursing practice. It is also imperative to maintain workplace civility
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that prevents bullying or abuse towards the nurses. Due to this, management is recommended to

ensure a method to arrange continuous monitoring as well as an opportunity to report without

fearing for one’s reputation/relationships with the rest of the team.

Most residency programs focus on acquiring critical thinking/evidence-based practice

decision-making skills, reducing burnout overall, practicing clinical leadership, and improving

the quality of patient care. Although each organization/facility has an individualized program

that depicts its mission, purpose, and value, it should be invested and coordinated to achieve

higher levels of patient care with a decrease in nurse turnover rates. According to the American

Nurses Association, new graduates who were enrolled in a residency program showed a decrease

in stress and turnover within the first year. Burnout in new graduate nurses should no longer be

neglected, where an immediate modification of a lack of resource/support is required. These

interventions will guide many nurses, both experienced and inexperienced, to prioritize self-care

and provide patient care with compassion.

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