Nursing Burnout: Should Certain Personality Types Avoid Nursing Management Postions - Research Paper Example

PICO Worksheet: Nursing Burnout and Type-A Personality Clinical problem Nursing staff are frequently prone to burnout because of the stressful work environment and also various stressful situations that develop among the patients and their families that they encounter in day-to-day practice. Burnout may be defined as persistent negative mental state which is mainly work related and is present in nonpathologic populations (Bencomo et al, 2004). There is some evidence that burnout is associated with personality traits and type-A personality.

Researchers have often wondered as to why burnout occurs only in some individuals and not in others, despite same working conditions and environment. A good answer to this has been the type of personality of the individual. PICO Question "Are type-A personality individuals at increased risk of burnout that they are not suitable for nursing manager positions?” Problem: Burnout in nursing staff P: Nurses in management positions I: Burnout in type-A personality C: Proper delegation O: Content employees Search strategy The commencement of search for evidence for the concerned PICO question was done after determining important terms which can be used for the search and the inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Initial search was done in PubMed using the MeSH terms "burnout" "nurses" "type A personality" "management positions". The limits set for the search was "English language article only" because lack of understanding of the reviewer of other languages. The search yielded 8 results. After this, google scholar was used for the search. The key terms used for the search were the same as PubMed. The search yielded 130 articles. Abstracts from the articles in the first 2 pages of the search were reviewed for selection of pertinent and useful articles.

From these databases, 3 articles were selected to answer the PICO question and facilitate evidence-based practice. The gold standard for any evidence based practice are randomized controlled trials which when performed with optimized research designs that can answer pertinent questions. However, meta-analysis and systematic review have topped the hierarchy list and when present, they are preferred to randomized controlled trials (Evans, 2003). Clinical evidence According to a study by Buhler and Land (2004), those with type-A personality are at increased risk of burn out because of lack of increased motivation and engagement in work that prevents them from taking part in leisure activities and other health related meaningful life activities.

This study identified several studies which related type-A behaviour to burnout. In yet another study by Shimizutani et al (2008), it was evident that burnout was associated with low neuroticism and high extroversion, both of which are related to type-A personality. Such attributes contributed to client-related burnout and behavioural disengagement, resulting in conflict with patients. Thus, from the above 2 studies, it is evident that those with type-A personality are at increased risk of burnout and can contribute to patient conflict and employee dissatisfaction.

Thus, those with such personality must not be delegated to managerial posts which is as such a high risk job for burnout and can contribute to burnout in employees too. References Bencomo, J., Paz, C., Liebster, E. (2004). Personality traits, psychological adjustment, and burnout syndrome in nursing staff. Invest Clin., 45(2), 113-20. Buhler, K.E., and Land, T. (2004). Burnout and personality in extreme nursing: an empirical study. Invest Clin., 45(2), 113-20. Evans, D. (2003). Hierarchy of evidence: a framework for ranking evidence evaluating healthcare interventions.

Journal of Clinical Nursing, 12(1), p. 77 – 84. Shimizutani, M., Odagiri, Y., Ohya, Y. et al. (2008). Relationship of Nurse Burnout with Personality Characteristics and Coping Behaviors. Industrial Health, 46, 326–335