Burnout Among Healthcare Workers Essay

Introduction

Burnout is one of the major problems that medical workers around the world, including nurses, encounter. It is characterized by emotional exhaustion, reduced performance, and dissatisfaction with the work (Jun et al., 2021). As such, the previous research identified that more than half of nurses in the U.S. suffer from this condition (Jun et al., 2021). As a result, all the stakeholders suffer from the negative consequences of worker burnout. Hospitals and other medical facilities are hurt by high employee turnover rates, reduced productivity, and decreased revenues. On the other hand, nurses experience high levels of stress and depression, which adversely affects their physical as well as mental health. Lastly, patients receive lower quality healthcare which subsequently results in the diminished well-being of the local community.

Therefore, it is seen that the problem of burnout is quite common and causes serious damage to the whole healthcare system. In this regard, the current paper seeks to discuss the current literature regarding this issue, including workplace fatigue symptoms, antecedents, and consequences. Moreover, patient safety strategies and necessary competencies to avoid the adverse impact of burnout will be analyzed. Finally, Heinrich’s Domino Theory will be used to illustrate the failure of the patient safety program.

Literature Review

The problem of burnout has received significant interest in the academic and non-academic literature. As mentioned above, the common symptoms of burnout are constant tiredness and fatigue, depersonalization, and reduced performance. They usually manifest themselves through increased levels of cynicism and introversion, decreased empathy, and slight deviation in behavior compared to the past (Kelly et al., 2021). Additionally, nurses would experience a decline in motivation and self-esteem (Kelly et al., 2021). Although the majority of healthcare specialists can exhibit those symptoms at some point during their career, burnout becomes an issue when it lasts for a longer period of time.

In the latter case, burnout can cause significant damage to nurses’ physical and psychological health. The studies identified that experiencing burnout increases the risk of having obesity, hyperlipidemia, type 2 diabetes, problems with the heart, pain in the muscles and bones, and high levels of cholesterol, to name a few (Salvagioni et al., 2017). Additionally, affected professionals have significantly larger chances of dying before they reach the age of 45 (Salvagioni et al., 2017). As for the mental well-being, those nurses who suffer from burnout are found to seek psychological treatment and have insomnia more often than other specialists (Salvagioni et al., 2017). Moreover, some healthcare workers confessed to having suicidal thoughts, which disappeared only when the burnout issue was resolved.

This, in turn, leads to the decreased quality of provided healthcare services. In particular, burnout is strongly associated with the number of mistakes that nurses make during practice (Montgomery et al., 2021). For instance, Montgomery et al. (2021) discovered that affected professionals were more prone to make medication administration errors than their colleagues. Thus, it becomes clear that burnout is a problem that necessitates constant control from healthcare managers to ensure patient and employee well-being.

Contributing Factors

There are numerous factors that can contribute to the development of burnout. Among them, the major and most important one is overwork, which is caused by employee shortage (Taleghani et al., 2017). Furthermore, some personal qualities and organizational characteristics affect an individual’s propensity to suffer from burnout. As for the former, the research found that a person’s professional qualifications, communication skills, work experience, and age predict burnout (Rodrigues et al., 2017; Taleghani et al., 2017). For example, Emilia et al. (2017) found that agreeableness, extraversion, and openness decrease the risk of work-related exhaustion. As for the latter, a leadership style that empowers the subordinates and support from the colleagues are negatively correlated with the instances of burnout in the team of healthcare workers (Rodrigues et al., 2017). On the contrary, workplace abuse and violence lead to burnout (Liu et al., 2019). Therefore, it is seen that work-related exhaustion is a complex phenomenon that has several antecedents.

Patient Safety Strategies

In order to mitigate the possible negative consequences of burnout in the healthcare facility, managers should develop an adequate patient safety plan. The first aspect that leaders should pay attention to is the cultivation of patient-centric culture. In this respect, Rogers et al. (2