Most health care systems in the world are experiencing a significant problem with their nurses due to the heavy workload that they have to deal with. The fact that the demand for nurses has drastically increased over the past several years, yet the number of available nurses has still remained constant, is one of the main reasons why the heavy workload in hospital nurses is being experienced. On top of that, a reduced stay length of patients and increased over time with reduced staffing of nurses are other reasons why there is such a heavy workload for nurses.
Consequently, burnout for nurses affects the safety of a patient adversely. On top of that, it leads to negative job satisfaction for nurses and as a result, makes many people lose interest in the job, and as a result, the high shortage of nurses is experienced. The fact that a high percentage of nurses are expected to carry out other activities that are non-professional e.g., transporting patients and housekeeping duties, makes most of them plan on leaving their current jobs in the near future, an action that will lead to a higher shortage of nurses. In order to solve this issue of nursing burnout and as a result prevent the effects that come along with the problem, application of self-renewal techniques into nurses' daily practices is recommended. The introduction of mentoring programs especially for newly trained nurses, ensuring that there exists a lower nurse-to-patient ratio and teaching services of self-care are some of the techniques recommended.
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Discussion
Reasons for the high rate of nursing burnout
First and foremost, the aging population is the main reason why the demand for nurses is increasing drastically. For instance, the expected population growth rate of the United States of America since the year 2000 to 2020 is expected to be 18 percent (translating to approximately 31 million people) whereas the population of the aging people (above 65 years and obviously with more health needs tan the younger generation) has an expected growth of 54 percent (Davis, 2003). On top of that, the current supply of nurses is not enough to meet the high demand, and the resulting shortage of nurses is expected to increase more since the demand is bound to increase, and the available schools of nursing are not able to meet the skyrocketing educational demands. As a result, whenever a shortage of nurses occurs, the workload increases for the available nurses and this leads to burnout for them.
In the late 20 th century, the high costs of health care led to hospitals making a resolution to reduce their hospital staff, and this led to a decrease in the overall number of nurses. In order to fill the gap of the fewer nurses and the high demand for them, most hospitals introduced policies that made it necessary for nurses to work overtime whenever needed(Calvo et al., 2017). On top of that, high health care costs also forced hospitals to reduce the length of stay of patients. As a result, nurses are now faced with the task of taking care of patients who are sicker, and this makes them more fatigued than in the past, where they used to take care of some patients who were near to their recovering.
Impact of nursing burnout on Patient safety
Nursing burnout seems to be directly proportional to low care of patients by nurses and in most cases, leads to patients being less satisfied with the kind of services that they receive. Most of the research that has been done on the effects of nursing workout in relation to the safety of patients is mostly focused on the link between staffing levels of nurses and patient outcomes. From the many studies conducted, there is a strong the levels of nursing burnout have a significant direct impact on many patient outcomes that are nursing- sensitive. For instance, another study found out that there is a meaningful relationship between lower levels of nurse staffing and higher pneumonia rates. From the study, an increase in one hour that a registered nurse worked per any working day resulted in a decrease of 8.9% in the pneumonia odds among patients who were undergoing surgery (Mossburg & Dennison Himmelfarb, 2018). In a different study, the right of pneumonia was found to be higher in a situation where the number of nurses who were delegated to look for the patients was lower than when the number was higher since the fewer the number of nurses was, the higher the rate of nursing burnout became. In order to better understand the effect that nursing burnout has on the level of patient outcome, a better understanding of nursing workload is needed and the extent to which it is applied in various hospitals since various studies target specific hospitals that in most times are located in the same place (Rodrigues, Santos & Sousa, 2017).
Nursing burnout and insufficient time with patients
The total amount of workload that a nurse has is a significant determinant of the amount of time that he or she can spend on an individual patient or doing a certain task. Once a nurse has a heavy workload, there is a high possibility that he or she will develop burnout and, as a result, will not have enough time and energy that is much needed while taking activities that are key in ensuring that patient safety is upheld in the best manner possible. Nursing burnout can also lead to a reduction in the total amount of time that a nurse has to communicate and collaborate with other professional doctors, thus highly lowering the nurse-physician collaboration, and this puts the safety of patients at stake (Kim & Kim, 2011). On top of that, nursing burnout can also affect the level of communication that exists between a nurse and certain patients, thus limiting the amount of information that patients have regarding their safety.
Nursing burnout and a reduction in motivation
Several studies have proven that a high nursing burnout leads to a nurse’s failure to get satisfied with the kind of work that they do. Whenever a nurse becomes dissatisfied with the work that they do as a result of the workload being tiresome, the results are most likely to be low morale and motivation, poor performance in the job place, developing absenteeism and low turnover (Teng, Shyu, Chiou, Fan & Lam, 2010). On top of that, nurses being dissatisfied with the job that they do is likely to lead to the low quality of patient care, and this will, in return, lead to a reduced safety of patients and ineffective organization in the place of work. When this happens, the level of patient satisfaction is bound to below, and as a result, the essence of nursing as a job reduces. Impact of nursing workload on stress and burnout of nurses. However, less workload on nurses plays a significant role in preventing a reduction in their motivation, and this leads to increased patient satisfaction, and their safety is also high.
Impact of nursing workload on stress and burnout of nurses
In most cases, giving a heavy workload to nurses leads to much pressure in various work settings such as the Intensive Care Units and surgical rooms. A heavy workload leads to burnout and distress such as feeling exhausted emotionally, anger, and cynism. These effects lead to poor performance and result in job dissatisfaction and low patient safety (Prapanjaroensin, Patrician & Vance, 2017). Nurses experiencing burnout neglect the patients and become agitated easily thereby, As has been stated above, nurses who are experiencing burnout are most likely not able to perform in the same way that they should because their resources- both physical and cognitive- are reduced, and thus their performance is suboptimal. This situation leads to underperformance and reduced patient safety and care.
Nursing burnout and errors
Nursing burnout is a significant contributor to the mistakes that most nurses commit. When a nurse is experiencing burnout most probably as a result of heavy workload, his or her concentration reduces significantly without their knowledge. and as a result, there is a high possibility that the level of patient satisfaction will reduce since safety for the patients is highly reduced by the errors that the nurses experiencing burnouts are likely to make.
Nursing burnout and violations of professional practices
Once a nurse is experiencing burnout, it is highly possible that he or she will deviate from the policies and procedures that nurses should follow when carrying out an operation or when going around their regular duties, and this leads to a reduction in the level of student safety. Violations by nurses happen more often when nurses are experiencing pressure or burnout, mainly because of the heavy workload that they have to deal with (Ross, 2016). When nurses experience burnout, it is implausible for them to have enough time to consider practices for safe operations or even follow the rules and guidelines. Lack of adherence to the working standard procedures cannot guarantee patient safety and quality care. The situation becomes worse whenever following such rules and guidelines will lead to an increased usage of time, and the nurse is under pressure to use as less time as possible. Under such circumstances, the only option that a nurse has is to use as little time as possible when carrying out an operation, and the end result is reduced safety and care for patients.
Recommendations and conclusion
Nursing burnout is a major challenge in most hospitals all over the world. The shortage of nurses is the main reason for nursing burnout. Most hospitals are aiming at cutting their costs of operation thereby reducing the number of staff. The shortage is also contributed to the imbalance between those retiring and graduates. To solve the problem of nurse shortage, the focus should be maintaining the current number of nurses to ensure that hospitals are able to cope with the increasing levels of health care costs and also ensure that patient safety is well addressed. Despite the fact that most hospitals are trying to minimize the rising costs of health care, they should consider the deployment of more nurses. Management should ensure that there is a low nurse-to-patient ratio as this will give nurses enough time to focus and as a result high patient safety and care will be achieved. In order to effectively do this, the management needs to engage their nurses in determining the total number of nurses who should be hired in order to ensure that the supply of nurses is neither more than the required nor lower needed. The medical schools should also liase with hospitals to facilitate smooth transition of new nurses. This approach would reduce stress and in turn reduce the number of nurses shifting career.
Another effective approach that could reduce nursing burnout is a step by the management of a hospital to ensure that they fully understand their nurses. Effective communication and support between management and staff is essential in promoting job satisfaction. The administration should always ensure that they involve their nurses in all processes of decision making and improve the level of communication between them in order to give them room always to express themselves. On top of that, the management should explain to the nurses whenever changes are made to prevent them from getting caught while unprepared for the changes. The management should also be ready to listen to their nurses on any challenges that they may be experiencing and find ways through which such challenges can be solved. In order to do this more effectively, the management should consider establishing a mentoring program to help the nurses mentor each other and also invite outside mentors to discuss the challenges faced and possible solutions to the highlighted problems.
Benefits
The main benefit that hospitals are going to achieve by having a closer relationship with nurses and including them in the various processes of decision making is that nursing burnout will be reduced since nurses will open up to what should be done to overcome it. Additionally, patients will stick more to the hospitals that reduce nursing burnout since this will help in ensuring that their safety and care are well guaranteed. Another benefit that will be achieved is the fact that nurses will not be willing to leave their jobs since the workplace environment would be healthy. The nurse will serve patients for the right number of hours, and their workload will be reduced, and thus patients will experience quality care.
(Manomenidis, Panagopoulou & Montgomery, 2019)
References
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Davis, D. (2003). Nursing Burnout and Patient Safety. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association , 289 (5), 549-a-549. doi: 10.1001/jama.289.5.549-b
Kim, H., & Kim, H. (2011). Effects of Perceived Patient Safety Culture on Safety Nursing Activities in the General Hospital Nurses. Journal of Korean Academy Of Nursing Administration , 17 (4), 413. doi: 10.11111/jkana.2011.17.4.413
Manomenidis, G., Panagopoulou, E., & Montgomery, A. (2019). Job Burnout Reduces Hand Hygiene Compliance Among Nursing Staff. Journal of Patient Safety , 15 (4), e70-e73. doi: 10.1097/pts.0000000000000435
Mossburg, S., & Dennison Himmelfarb, C. (2018). The Association between Professional Burnout and Engagement with Patient Safety Culture and Outcomes. Journal of Patient Safety , 1. doi: 10.1097/pts.0000000000000519
Prapanjaroensin, A., Patrician, P., & Vance, D. (2017). Conservation of resources theory in nurse burnout and patient safety. Journal of Advanced Nursing , 73 (11), 2558-2565. doi: 10.1111/jan.13348
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Ross, J. (2016). The Connection between Burnout and Patient Safety. Journal of Perianesthesia Nursing , 31 (6), 539-541. doi: 10.1016/j.jopan.2016.08.010
Teng, C., Shyu, Y., Chiou, W., Fan, H., & Lam, S. (2010). Interactive effects of nurse-experienced time pressure and burnout on patient safety: A cross-sectional survey. International Journal of Nursing Studies , 47 (11), 1442-1450. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2010.04.005
