Effects of Burnout on the Nursing Profession in the Next Decade - Essay Example

Burnout as the Biggest Challenge on Nursing in this Decade

Healthcare professionals like nurses play an important role in ensuring that all visiting patients receive the best care available. Looking after patients is satisfying but can be overwhelming for nurses of varied expertise and experience. Challenges that nurses may have to fight in the next decade include short staffing, workplace violence, and burnout. This paper highlights nurse burnout, its causes, effects, and how to fight burnout among nurses.

What is Nurse Burnout?

Nurse burnout refers to a mental, physical, and emotional state caused by a sustained lack of job fulfillment, support, and constantly working for long hours. If left untreated, burnout can develop into clinical depression and a collection of unaddressed symptoms over time. Lack of emotional and physical energy can affect the general productivity of nurses and delivery of services. Nurse burnout develops in dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and dissatisfaction in personal achievements. Burnout has negative effects on your life in and out of the workplace (White et al., 2020).

Causes of Burnout Among Nurses

Working for long shifts is one of the main causes of burnout among nurses throughout the nursing career. Some nurses work twelve-hour shifts and may be called upon to work overtime when patients are more or putting in overtime voluntarily. Working for extended hours results in fatigue and more chances of errors caused by nurses on duty (Mahendran et al., 2019)

A nurse is highly motivated by the need to help others. Being selfless is a desirable character trait for nurses but can affect the productivity of a nurse in the long run. A nurse that joins the profession with a dire for helping other first at all times can result in burnouts.

Working in busy and high-stress environments can be responsible for emotional and physical fatigue. In most healthcare institutions, nurses in oncology and emergency response departments are susceptible to burnout symptoms. Healthcare institutions should take drastic measures towards caring for nurses working in busy and high-stress environments.

Dealing with death and sickness can affect a nurse. The daily routine of a nurse includes dealing with the loss of patients, interacting with family members of the sick, the bereaved, or working for long hours. The emotional strain and working for long hours can be overwhelming.

A nurse can develop burnout symptoms after working for in a poor working environment for years. Work environments with issues like poor leadership, lack of interpersonal and interdepartmental collaboration can hold back a nurse from getting job satisfaction.

Signs and Symptoms of Nurse Burnout

Constant Fatigue is likely to affect the productivity of a nurse. After working for a long day, you should get adequate sleep to feel refreshed and ready to handle the next day. Most nurses are unable to balance family duties, spend time with loved ones, or display physical signs of exhaustion as a result of nurse burnout in different environments.

Compassion fatigue is also bound to hold back nurses that enter the profession to take care of all clients, including the underserved. After interacting with different patients and families, a nurse can experience emotional stress and compassion fatigue after witnessing dear, pain, and suffering. A nurse suffering from compassion fatigue are detached and feel cynical about the job.

A nurse is likely to feel underappreciated and overworked as they feel unnoticed and overworked. In the next decade, the globe is bound to be highly dependent on technology. More nurses could feel underappreciated and overworked amid the development of new infections.

Lack of enthusiasm at work can also deter a nurse from giving the best quality of care. After joining the ranks of certified nurses, you are bound to feel more enthusiastic about reporting to work the next day. Unfortunately, burnout can make a nurse feel reluctant about reporting to work as usual.

Effects of Burnout on Nurses

Burnout can result in a large number of mistakes made by nurses. Mistakes made by nurses include increased rates of infections like surgical site mistakes and urinary tract infections. All members of the healthcare team should take the liberty of watching out for one another.

Nurse burnout can also result in reduced satisfaction level of patients. Due to the low number of practicing nurses, reduced numbers of graduating nurses, and increasing numbers of patients, nurses are bound to experience burnout symptoms in the next decade.

Best Ways for Avoiding Burnout Among Nurses

To avoid nurse burnout, a nurse can practice deep breathing techniques. You can take between five and ten slow deep breaths before entering a patient's room to regain composure. Before answering questions, you can also take a few seconds to re-center and get your ground.

A nurse should also develop the habit of taking breaks. Long and short breaks are available for nurses. While at work, you should make use of the coffee and lunch breaks. During vacations, you can take time off to reconnect with your loved ones before resuming your duties later on.

While avoiding a burnout, a nurse can decide to develop a healthy lifestyle that includes yoga, a healthy diet, working out, and getting enough sleep. A regular workout plan can help you avoid stress and keep you fresh as you look to interact with your patients the next day (Wei et al., 2020).

Emerging Trends in Handling Nurse Burnout

Given the vulnerability of nurses to burnout, more employers are opting for a regular survey to identify staff members that are emotionally and physically fit for duty. Some nurses are subjected to questionnaire surveys assessing mental health and levels of stress. More healthcare institutions should use assessment tools like the well-being index to help nurses experiencing burnout from the early stages.

Institutions in charge of hiring nurses are taking the liberty of hiring more nurses to take care of the rising number of patients. If the number of nurses increases in the next decade, nurses are bound to get fewer burnout symptoms, given that they work fewer hours per day.

More nurses are accepting the challenge for lifelong learning to take care of the ever-changing problems of patients. Continuing education prepares a nurse for the changing demography of patients, the development of new infections, and the development of new skills required by a nurse (Fedele, 2017).

Nurses are encouraged to seek a healthy work-life balance that includes undertaking your hobbies, meditation, and relaxation techniques. More nurses are bound to seek ways of delivering quality care clients and avoiding activities that could affect time and energy.

Conclusion

There major causes of nurse burnout symptoms that could hold back a nurse include low staff motivation, poor patient engagement, the emotional toll of handling different patients and families, and low standards of patient care. Avoiding burnout entails understanding nurse burnout, its causes, results, and how to avoid nurse burnout. As more nurses look to join the nursing profession, they should have realistic goals to avoid burnout symptoms in the next decade.