A Graduate-level nurse Practitioner program is very demanding. How do you intend to address the demands? The American healthcare system has been increasing in complexity, with future nursing professionals set to face an extremely challenging care delivery framework. Researchers hint at a continued rise in professional nursing staff shortage, with the nation’s aging population progressively increasing healthcare system demands (American Organization of Nurse Executives, 2008). Healthcare facilities will be hard-pressed to be more cost- and resource- efficient owing to financial pressures (National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice, 2006). This paper will examine a few potential impacts of such demands that result in nursing staff burnout, followed by exploring potential triggers and coping plans.

Nursing Burnout Triggers and Coping Strategies

Nursing staff, indeed, demonstrates high burnout rate, resulting largely from emotional and physical exhaustion and a demanding work setting. An AMA (American Medical Association) journal-published research work revealed that four out of ten hospital nursing staff displayed high burnout scores, with 43.2 percent being in the upper emotional-collapse range. Adoption of the right approaches can aid graduate level nurse practitioners in coping with burnout and delivering superior performance.

Nursing Burnout Symptoms:

Nurse practitioners at the preliminary stage of burnout may:

· Struggle with rising from bed every morning

They may also feel:
i. Their patients are unappreciative despite their best efforts

ii. Administrators fail to recognize their efforts

iii. Nobody else cares as much about patients

iv. The management is only concerned with the budget

One unintentional coping mechanism is: ceasing from giving one’s best performance and working perfunctorily, without much empathy towards patients. Though this facilitates coping with stress, it further lowers the nursing professional’s self-esteem, owing to the awareness that they are delivering inferiorly. Cynicism is an indication of all-out burnout.

Triggers:

Burnout arises from a blend of physical and emotional workplace demands, besides nursing profession-specific demands like:

· Understaffing: This is a counterproductive, cost-cutting technique typically employed by healthcare organizations, resulting in psychological and physical overexertion among nursing professionals. According to the MNA’s (Michigan Nurses Association’s) Dawn Kettinger, caring for around twice the number of individuals than one ought…