Role Strain and Burnout among Nurses
Introduction
Role strain and burnout in the nursing Profession is a common phenomenon characterized by reduced physical, emotional, and intellectual energy required to complete their tasks. When nurses are overwhelmed by the workload, they develop moral distress, including anxiety, depression, and impaired sleep. Consequently, this affects the quality of services offered by nursing and eventually hinters about a country’s ability to deliver quality services to its citizen. Some of the causes of role strain and nurse burnout include nurse shortage, lack of effective departments to strengthen interpersonal communication, poor working environment with inadequate resources, failure to advance in studies that would possibly lead to job specialization, and the increased number of patients seeking healthcare services. Role strain and nurse burnout affect the quality of services provided to the patient necessitating the need to develop strategies to curb the situation before it adversely affects the profession.
Effects of Role strains on the patient’s care, legal and Ethics Issues and Possible ways to manage Role Strain and Burnout
When the role stress becomes overwhelming for nurses, they develop moral stress that includes depression, impaired sleep, and anxiety. The overall effect of this is reduced physical, intellectual, and emotional energy to complete the assigned tasks. Consequently, the quality provided to patient care reduces significantly (Bong, 2019). The reduced quality of patient care services may lead to distrust among the patients and, consequently, affect the profession’s public image. Nursing ethics requires a nurse to respect the patient’s right to quality healthcare services, seeking consent before carrying out any treatment, and disclosing all medical information (Lee et al., 2016). Nurses’ attempts to reconcile their values and those of the profession, especially in times of emergency, are stressing and possibly lead to burnout among the involved nurses. Nurses can be legally held responsible for breaching the profession’s ethical requirements, which increases the levels of role strain and burnout further. Managing and reducing role strain and burnout includes talking to mentors about their experiences and worries, ensuring effective work-life balance, being involved in continuous learning to achieve job satisfaction, and being active members of teamwork within their working organizations.
Possible Issues leading to Nurse Burnout
The number of patients seeking medical services in healthcare facilities is much higher than the available nurses. Under these circumstances, the nurses are forced to overwork to meet patient expectations (Bong, 2019). Consequently, nurses become exhausted, depressed, and job satisfaction is never achieved. Nurse shortage can be attributed to a lack of enough instructors in the nursing learning institutions, few nursing programs, and few people selecting the career, labor migration, and poor job retention that discourages people from choosing the profession. When the number of nurses is small compared to the patient, nurses are expected to work for longer hours. This deprives them of adequate time to meet their families, engage in social activities, including their hobbies, and relax to reduce the chances of developing moral distress that includes anxiety, depression, and impaired sleep.
Poor leadership in healthcare organizations is another factor that fuels role stress and nurse burnout. Positive leadership behavior should provide adequate resources for nurses to comfortably carry out their assigned duties (Brown et al., 2018). With enough support, the levels of role strain in nursing can be considerably reduced. In addition to the resources, leaders should ensure that they encourage nurses to engage in continuous learning to improve their skills and possibly achieve job satisfaction. Job satisfaction will significantly reduce the levels of role strain and burnout too. Insisting on the development of effective interpersonal communication skills within the workplace is a responsibility of the leadership. Effective interpersonal communicational skills encourage the sharing of experiences among the working teams as well as team working. In such circumstances, the shared efforts reduce role strain and burnout significantly. However, most healthcare organization lacks effective teamwork and are characterized by poor interpersonal communication skills.
Solution to the Identified Issues
Addressing the nurse shortage. Role strain and nurse burnout pose significant threats to the quality healthcare systems, and this necessitates the need for immediate measures to avert the situation. The shortage can be reduced by subsidizing the nursing program fees to entice more candidates, providing positive working conditions and appropriate remuneration to reduce the number of nurses leaving the job, increasing the number of institutions offering nursing programs and availing enough instructors (Mudallal, Othman & Al Hassan, 2017). Responding to the nurse shortage will ensure that a significant number of nurses are available to meet the higher number of patients seeking the services. Consequently, it will reduce overworking, and nurses will afford the time to engage in social activities, including their hobbies and meeting their families.
Positive leadership behavior is another solution to nursing burnout. It includes the provision of adequate resources to carry out the assigned duties without straining, encouraging and sponsoring workshops for building and maintaining interpersonal communication skills, ensuring teamwork attitude is supported, sponsoring and encouraging nurse to take part in continuous learning and appropriate remuneration (Mudallal, Othman & Al Hassan, 2017). The overall effect of positive behavior is creating a positive working environment where nurses can share experiences, new graduates can be mentored, working in teams, and job satisfaction. Such a working environment is characterized by reduced levels of role strain and burnout. Consequently, the quality of healthcare services offered improves.
Experience in the Nursing Profession
During my first year in this demanding profession, I was determined to better my competence in the field and was ready and willing to attend as many patients as possible. I was a healthcare facility that provided staff accommodation, and most of the time I was within the facility. The number of people seeking services from this facility was higher compared to the available nurses, possibly because of its strategic location, in the town center. I also link the higher number to the fact that it was the only government facility within the area, and services were either free or subsidized. It was on a Monday, and two of our colleagues had traveled to their homes to meet their family members. A fire accident occurred in one of the restaurants within the town, and this resulted in an increased influx of patients in our facility. Some required critical care. Others required first aid before being referred, and some required minor surgeries. I must admit that for the first time, I felt confused, incompetent, and started regretting why I chose the career. I approached one of my mentors and was open to him. He told me all would be well, and I only needed to be composed and try doing what I can do my best. I felt encouraged by his remarks, and with the help of the available nurses and doctors, we collectively and successfully responded to the emergency. My experience with the situation taught me a worth lesson that getting stressed up while on duty risks taking the long decision and may have significant effects on the patients.
Conclusion
Burnout in the nursing profession is linked with nurse shortage that has resulted in heavy workload and poor leadership behaviors that have failed to provide adequate facilities, building and maintaining effective teams with effective communication skills. The ethics in the profession are also sources of stress, especially during the time of emergency. Bleaching of the ethics in the job may result in legal accountability, which further leads to stress. A nurse can manage role strain through being active members of teams within their organizations, talking about their worries and experiences with their mentors, and effective balancing of work and life issues. Role strain and burnout in the nursing profession can significantly affect the quality of patient care services and broadly public trust in the profession. Therefore, there is a need to offer permanent solutions to the issue.
References
Bong, H. E. (2019). Understanding moral distress: How to decrease turnover rates of new graduate pediatric nurses. Pediatric Nursing, 45(3), 109-114.
Brown, S., Whichello, R., & Price, S. (2018). The impact of resiliency on nurse burnout: an integrative literature review. Medsurg Nursing, 27(6), 349.
Jeon, K. B., & Park, M. (2019). Relationship of ICU nurses’ difficulties in end-of-life care to moral distress, burnout, and job satisfaction. Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration, 25(1), 42-51.
Lee, H. F., Kuo, C. C., Chien, T. W., & Wang, Y. R. (2016). A meta-analysis of the effects of coping strategies on reducing nurse burnout. Applied nursing research, 31, 100-110.
Mudallal, R. H., Othman, W. A. M., & Al Hassan, N. F. (2017). Nurses’ burnout: the influence of leader empowering behaviors, work conditions, and demographic traits. INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 54, 0046958017724944.