Nursing Burnout and Practice

Applying Theory to a Practice Problem: Part 1: Introduction and Problem of Practice
The problem of nurse burnout is one that impacts the nursing industry all over the globe. Researchers have identified the problem and its significance in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia (Henry, 2014; Canada-De la Fuente, Varga, San Luis, Garcia, Canadas & Emilia, 2015; Wang, Liu & Wang, 2015; Sadati, Rahnavard, Heydari, Hemmati, Ebrahimzadeh & Lankarani, 2017). Nursing burnout can lead to higher costs for health care facilities, as burnout typically leads to higher turnover and higher turnover to the need for more training and expenditure on staffing. Nursing burnout can also impact care given to patients as it can result in compassion fatigue (Henry, 2014). There are numerous indicators of burnout among nurses but how to address it and reduce the risk of burnout is still unclear (Canadas-De la Fuente et al., 2015).
Burnout is a practical problem because it impacts not only the ability of the nurse to provide quality care effectively but also the ability of the health care facility for which the nurse works to operate efficiently. Because of the global nature of burnout, researchers have attempted to identify causes and interventions based on the Five Factor theory, which examines the personalities of nurses and categorizes them as 1) extraverted, 2) agreeable, 3) open, 4) conscientious, and 5) neurotic (Canadas-De la Fuente et al., 2015). Other approaches have been to examine external factors and the environment in which nurses work to see how these impact nurses, correlate with fatigue, and impact effectiveness in the health care industry (Sadati et al., 2017).
The problem of nursing burnout is significant because nurses are the front line in the health care industry and patients rely upon nurses for quality care. If nurses experience burnout or compassion fatigue in the course of their work, patients are the ones who can suffer the most as their quality of care experience is likely to be reduced substantially (Henry, 2014). Thus, there is a need for this issue to be addressed from an appropriate theoretical perspective supported by evidence for the sake of patients and their loved ones.
Nursing burnout can also impact the industry by causing nurses to abandon their profession and the health care facilities that rely upon qualified and able nurses to assist in delivering quality care routinely. As Wang et al. (2015) show, nurse managers and administrators must be mindful of the needs of nurses so that they are not worn out by personal or environmental factors that prevent them from operating at the highest levels of their calling. If personal and environmental factors go un-observed by nurse managers and administrators, nursing quality can dwindle and do damage to the reputation of the facility, patients’ health, and relations among other professionals, nurses and physicians in the department.
As agencies look to reform the health care sector, understanding how emotional exhaustion, compassion fatigue and burnout are related is crucial to taking the right steps that will help the industry to prevent burnout from rising and hopefully help to reduce the rate of burnout in the future (Sadati et al., 2017). The major problem is that burnout can stem from a complex variety of factors that may be related both to personality type and to environmental issues in the workplace. Too many hours worked, too little support from other nurses, too many demands placed upon the nurses, as well as personal issues such as family needs, economic or financial crises, time required away from work for educational pursuits, and simple time management limitations are all factors that have to be considered.
References
Cañadas-De la Fuente, G. A., Vargas, C., San Luis, C., García, I., Cañadas, G. R., &
Emilia, I. (2015). Risk factors and prevalence of burnout syndrome in the nursing profession. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 52(1), 240-249.
Henry, B. J. (2014). Nursing burnout interventions: What is being done?. Clinical
Journal of Oncology Nursing, 18(2), 211.
Sadati, A. K., Rahnavard, F., Heydari, S. T., Hemmati, S., Ebrahimzadeh, N., &
Lankarani, K. B. (2017). Health Sector Reform, Emotional Exhaustion, and Nursing Burnout: A Retrospective Panel Study in Iran. Journal of Nursing Research, 25(5), 368-374.
Wang, S., Liu, Y., & Wang, L. (2015). Nurse burnout: personal and environmental
factors as predictors. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 21(1), 78-86.