Nurses work round the clock to provide medical care to patients. Tired and exhausted all the time, nurses have one of the toughest jobs out there. Prolonged levels of exhaustion and stress can lead to getting burntout, the feeling of being spent. A burnout is usually accompanied by a feeling of heaviness that makes it harder for you to have the energy to show up to work.
So, why nurses alone seem more vulnerable to burning out than other professionals?
Here are 7-reasons nurses why nurses burnout:
Nurses Stay on Their Feet For Entire Shifts
Nurses stay on their feet all-day to visit patients under their care. Walking from one bed to the next, standing, operating medical procedures, handling medical equipment, there seems to be a never-ending list of tasks that a nurse has to do in a single day.
Nurses may overstretch their capacity for work and lead themselves to experiencing burnout. With not a minute’s worth of rest in between their medical duties, it’s no surprise that the nurses are the most burntout professionals out there.
Career Ambiguity
Which program is better and the right choice for your career in nursing? The competition — for being the best nursing program — between msn vs dnp epitomizes this career crisis faced by nursing professionals who want to upskill.
The MSN program aims to prepare nurse practitioners for the various specializations in clinical nursing, such as Family Nursing, Adult-Gerontology, and Mental Health.
The degree program covers the foundations and practices involved in learning advanced skills like administering anesthesia or conducting medical assessments for diagnosis.
Going in, you must know that nursing is an extremely competitive profession, and if you want to leave your mark on the profession, then you should definitely look into boosting your credentials with a better degree or course.
Working and as well as pursuing a degree, online or on-campus, is overwhelmingly exhausting, to say the least. The key is to take care of yourself as much as you can to avoid burnout.
Lack Of Sleep
The need for rest cannot be overestimated when we talk about recovery. Unfortunately, nurses have extremely tight schedules that doesn’t leave much time for them to rest.
The shifts are longer and the amount of work keeps piling on. On top of all this, there is no specific schedule that nurses follow.
They can get their shifts adjusted multiple times in a single month, leading to the nurses’ inability to adjust to a sleep cycle or pattern.
The result is a lack of a proper recovery. And the consequences appear in the nurses’ capacity to perform at their best.
Not only a nurse’ performance takes a plunge but patient care, too, suffers. Stress combined with lack of proper sleep eventually lead to burnout.
Lack Of Support At Work
Hospitals, like any other organization, have their own hierarchical system that can lead to issues of manipulation and exploitation.
People at the top of the hierarchy rarely consult or accept suggestions from people in the junior roles or roles below them.
A nurse’s motivation for involvement in providing quality nursing care is, therefore, crushed.
Breakdown is unavoidable after motivation has left. Being in an environment that keeps you constantly on edge is highly stressful and burnout is imminent in such circumstances.
Difficult Patients
Nurses deal with difficult patients almost every day.
In hospital settings, you have people belonging to various walks of life, different ethnicities, and different backgrounds. It is inevitable that a gap in communication can occur.
Usually, nurses have a thick skin when it comes to insults or slurs.
But, when you have so many things constantly on your mind, all it takes is one bad moment for you to snap.
The need for mental health care is great among nurses because they have to put up with a lot throughout a single day.
High Stress Work Environment
Hospitals are stressful workplaces. There is a lot happening at any time. Nurses already have too much on their plate as it is.
They have to monitor patients, administer medicines, and keep tabs on the patients’ medical requirements et cetera, which can lead them to having high stress levels.
Stress then keeps on piling, and eventually, the nurses, suffering from prolonged stress, may burnout.
Added to that, the pressure of their work, meeting patients’ needs on a timely basis, and helping doctors in assessing and treating patients, are all tasks that contribute to stress in nurses.
Isolation At Work
Nurses are away from their families for extended periods at a time. Support, love, and care are important ingredients of burnout recovery.
With no time for rest, long shift hours, time spent away from family and loved ones, nurses are extremely vulnerable to burning out.
Another effect of working this long and far away from loved ones is that the nurses will start to feel alienated from society and their own families.
All these contribute negatively towards their performance. In taking care of their patients, nurses suffering from burnout will experience a feeling of apathy towards work and patients.
To avoid problems down the road, a nurse should consult a mental health counselor. The nurse can walk the counselor through the stress-causing events, and the mental health counselor can then proceed to suggesting therapeutic care, if required.
NURSE BURN OUT
Nurses are expected to shoulder a lot of work. Burnout in nurses is primarily caused by prolonged and untreated stress.
Add to that the pressure of a nurse’s job, the long shifts, the number of patients per nurse, the toxic and exploitative work environment, time spent away from family, and you have a perfect setup for a burnout.
However, burnout can be avoided if nurses deal with their stress through the help of a mental health counselor. Eliminating stressors can also help you avoid burnout in the future, but the nurses have little control over their environments to eliminate the things causing stress.
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