Burnout in Nursing: Professional Challenges and Impacts

Professional Challenges in Nursing: Burnout
Introduction
Burnout is termed as the exhaustion of an individual’s overall well-being. To put it simply, it is experienced when there is too much stress, generally in the work environment. This leads to emotional, mental, and physical strain, making it difficult for one to perform his or her job proficiently (Ericksen, 2015). Adriaenssens (2015) indicates, that burnout impacts emotional aspect the most. In correlation with nursing, negative effects of this ordeal include poor patient outcomes, and compromised safety for both patient and nurse. Evidently, these are precipitating factors that contribute to the deterioration of the healthcare system stemming from the direct and indirect damage that

The Australian Nursing Journal (2012) states that burnout was to blame for patients dying due to increased infections acquired in the urinary tract, through surgical sites, and so forth. It is said that the cognitive detachment one experiences as a result of burnout is to blame. In other words, while performing patient care, nurses are there physiologically, but not psychologically as though their minds are functioning on autopilot. This is not a safe practice due to higher probability of making an error or just being outright careless. Therefore, this is one of the most obvious, negative and concerning consequence of

(2015) implies that the unit manager together with work environment, greatly influences the nurse’s overall job satisfaction, and has little to do with the stress of caring for patients. Furthermore, studies show that stronger relationships amongst management, staff, patients and families, allows for bonding between each component of the healthcare pyramid and makes the job more “enjoyable”, thereby reducing the emotional fatigue associated with burnout. Research also states that changes in organizational policies such as nurse to patient ratio, short staffing, etc., reduce this risk (Australian Nursing Journal,