Strategies and Interventions to Combat Nurse Burnout

Strategies and Interventions to Combat Nurse Burnout

Some ways to combat burnout for nurses include many different things. One topic that can be addressed is nurses workload. In the state of California, a law states that a nurse must have a patient to nurse ratio of 1:5 for medical surge units (TS, 2015). Another suggestion for reducing nursing burnout is to have an increase in clinical supervision, which was proven to reduce stress psychologically (Hyrkas, 2005). Problem Based Learning has been shown to be effective in enhancing student success and empowerment ( Young-Hee, Kyung-Hye, & Ok-Hee, (2018) thus would be beneficial for the nursing population.

Meditating has also been proven to be effective in reducing stress for nursing professionals. However, there are some issues around that because there needs to be an intervention done to help guide these nurses in the correct way to make sure that they are getting professional help and guidance. ( Noble, and et. al, 2019). Other ways that can reduce stress for nurses is by increasing the support from coworkers and providing a plethora of opportunities for nurses in the professional world. There is always room for improvement that can improve the quality of life for nurses. The current management of nursing burnout has yet to be tackled, and there is so much room for improvement for this situation.

Burnout in the nursing profession is definitely a problem that cost a lot. Even though there are detrimental effects while examining the reasoning behind nurse burnout, however there are other problems that is worth looking into. Financially, a study done around 2007-2008 showed that the nurse turnover rate resulted in at least over $80,000 dollars for the cost of the hospital per registered nurse, and most likely this number has risen since these numbers were during inflation (Jones, 2008). Since there are multiple factors affecting nurse burnout, one of the contributing factors to it is job dissatisfaction. According to (Snavely, 2016), many of the nurses believe that there is a shortage of nurses, which present problems such as the quality care of the patients, their work life, and how much time the nurses can spend with their patients.

Hospital acquired infections and burnout have been linked to show a major contribution to high readmission rates. The hospital loses at least several millions of dollars annually do to infections (Snavely, 2016). On the subject of costs, some positive conditions for working nurses unfortunately do not increase the nurses salary. Conditions like the autonomy of their work, decision making skills, and their workforce resiliency do not contribute to increased salary. Nurse burnout can be seen not only from a business perspective but a perspective of morality. With a study shown on nurse burnout and patient mortality, these nurses felt emotionally exhausted, and cynical towards the people who were in need in help, resulting in inefficient performance tasks and always expressing the want to quit or leave (Lee, & King, (2014). Unfortunately, this study shows how important burnout can be and how it can end up affecting human lives in the end.

Upon considering the facts above and the interventions suggested, burnout should not only be directed towards nurses in the professional world, but also towards students as well, because it starts from there. Nursing students are the foundation of future nurses, and the problems occurring with nurses of today will only prohibit the same unforeseen circumstances with the developing nursing students. Nursing students go through rigorous training that can really break the students down. These habits will start to develop now, and how they cope with the stress of nursing school will only follow them throughout their professional career. It is already known that their empathy decreases as they advance while being in the nursing program (REFERENCE). In regards to how the nurses feel during their nursing program, and their attitudes and behaviors that develop with them into their professional career is very concerning. It is concerning because this relates to the EF component of burnout. Although, nursing schools want their students to be equipped with the best practice of care, and safety, it would be helpful for these students to be armed with proper training against burnout. Nurses should have a successful long fulfilling career.

Research that has been done shows that there is a significant problem with nurse burnout. There have been multiple studies showing that various stressors that contribute to nurse burnout can decrease the quality of life for a nurse. Furthermore, there have been more studies that contribute to individual behaviors that factor into nurse burnout. While there are still more studies to be done in regards to nurse burnout, there are still some strategies that are not known to be as effective to reduce the incidence elf nurse burnout.

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