The Occupational Health Blog

About Burnout in Nurses

• NMS
• Jul 28, 2021

Everyone deals with stressors from time to time. We may have to juggle schedules, school, family emergencies and work deadlines but what happens when these stressors become more frequent and unrelenting? Nurses have always had it tough. Work hours are long, stressful, and require a great amount of compassion and emotional processing. Burnout has always been prevalent in nursing, but the past 16 months has brought nurse burnout to the forefront on a worldwide scale.

 

What is Nurse Burnout?

Nurse burnout is an ongoing state of emotional and physical exhaustion brought on by stress and the rigor of the occupation. Not only are nurses often required to make life altering decisions very quickly, but they also have to do so for long spans of time and often put the desire to care for others over their own mental and physical health needs. Nurse burnout can become a problem for healthcare organizations as it can lead to high rates of employee turnover, and impact the facility’s quality of care, patient satisfaction, and even medical outcomes of the patients.

 

Signs of burnout?

• Depersonalization
• Emotional Exhaustion
• Feel Overworked
• Feeling Undervalued
• Increased Irritability

 

How can you support your nurses?

 

Train leaders to recognize the signs of burnout

Acknowledging that burnout is a risk and being able to recognize the signs of burning out is the first step to alleviate the problem. Leaders should become familiarized with signs of burn out such as increasing number of callouts, increasing levels of frustration, and withdrawing from coworkers and patients. Taking the time to train leaders in an investment in your team.

 

Institute support programs

When your employee’s feel supported it takes a great deal of weight off their shoulders. Caring for your employee’s mental health should be a priority. Scheduling adequate time off, providing areas for down time and decompression, implementing wellness programs and listening to employee feedback can all go a long way in providing a respite for nurses.

 

Improve nurse to patient ratios

The Journal of the American Medical Association did research that found nurses in hospitals with 8:1 patient-to-nurse ratios were more than twice as likely to show high levels of emotional exhaustion when compared to nurses in facilities with a 4:1 ratio. Although this may require bringing on more staff, it can also prevent high turnover rates and poor patient satisfaction or medical outcomes.

 

Prioritize safety

Nurses are at extremely high risk for workplace violence and incidents are vastly underreported. Additionally, providing appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) has become even more important in the midst of a global pandemic. Prioritizing hazard prevention, safety training, and record keeping can go a long way in improving the safety of workers and decreasing stress.

 

Support your nurses' physical wellbeing

Not only should nurses' mental health be cared for, but their physical health should also be a priority as well. Providing pre-employment physicals, and annual physicals can ensure that your employees are healthy and at lower risk for injury on the job.