Burnout Among Nurses
The helping professions, including nursing, are characterized by the fact that they are not something external to the individual, but encompass the whole person.
The activities performed by nurses, require a personal commitment and direct interaction with people. Therefore, it is common to work with the most intense aspects of patient care (pain, anger, frustration, fear, death, etc.). All this, plus small, medium or large daily doses of stress can cause nurses to have a predisposition to experience some degree of burnout, which can lead to the manifestation of unfavorable attitudes and feelings, both for the professional and the person who receives their service (Wright, 2011). …show more content…
These responses mediate the stressor-health relationship. In the implications of burnout we can differentiate those derived for the individual himself and those derived for the organization (McHugh, 2011). The nurse suffering from Burnout becomes a rigid, stubborn and inflexible person, blocking the progress and changes, to the extent that they require new adaptation efforts. The nurse is also viewed as a cynical person, appearing unmotivated, unsympathetic and even aggressive with patients with a distant and dehumanizing treatment towards them (Witkoski, 2012). The most important consequences on the organization can include a decreased job satisfaction, low or no interest in work activities, deterioration of the quality of service, increased accidents, and low job involvement. This burnout prevents nurses from evolving, and leads to fatigue. Fatigue causes stress, and stress can also lead to many health problems, such as hypertension, palpitations, tachycardia, and menstrual alterations. In every hospital, there is always going to be nurses who are more prone to burnout than others, especially those who work in units in which patients have chronic illnesses, terminal diseases, and/or are more dangerous than other