Many factors influence the nurse ability to provide safe, effective, and high quality patient’s care. Among these factors, nurse fatigue. Nurse fatigue occurs generally as a result of a lack of adequate sleep, working extended shift hours, 2-3 back to back 12 hours shifts with no inadequate time to sleep. As a soon to be novice nurse, we need to be aware of the impacts that fatigue can have on the delivery of our care and most importantly the safety of the patients, coworkers and self. In fact, fatigue greatly decrease the nurse ability to provide safe care through increased likelihood of medical errors (e.g; administration of the wrong medication or dose to the wrong patient) causing harm.
In less acute circumstances, long term outcome of understaffing can also be detrimental to patient condition. Often, when a staff member is overwhelmed with the workload, nursing actions which are perceived less critical may be pushed to the back burner. Debilitated patients may not be turned and repositioned resulting in hospital acquired pressure ulcers, which not only affects patient outcome, but also taxes the hospital
Nurses fatigue is growing problem nurse face each day in the healthcare environment, and he can be caused by long hours, sleep deprivation, and possibly by accepting extra assignments can be dangerous for both nurses and patient. These inadequacies can result in major implications for the health and safety of registered nurses and can compromise patient care which can lead to fatalities. (American Nurses Association, 2014). In my experience, being fatigued from working much 12-hour shifts consecutively was very difficult as I felt extremely tired, resulting in lack of focus, missing important details during the handing over the process with impaired cognitive functioning. This I found was detrimental to the patients and myself as it impedes quality and has a deleterious effect on patient safety.
Being a nurse is one of the hardest jobs, including one of the lowest paying for the workload nurses take on. Nurses go through years of schooling, and many nurses often end up disliking their chosen profession. There seems to always be a shortage of nurses so many nurses are more than often overworked and underpaid. Having another individual’s health hang in your balance can cause mental and physical exhaustion which can eventually lead to nurse burnout. Many nurses that work in high-stress environments and not having the proper training or enough assistance can lead to serious mistakes in patient care.
Introduction The idea of how nurses can conduct themselves in a daily basis for some can be viewed as they have it easy or least make it look easy and for others it’s world’s best job. The truth is being a nurse is very difficult job and it can be very labor intensive and very rewarding at the same time. Just think every time you go into the doctor’s office or have an overnight stay in the hospital what all to do your nurse during their shift?
Diminished personal accomplishment is to evaluate oneself negatively because of failure a result it occurs when the individual’s external demands become higher than their coping ability.(Maslach, Schaufeli, leiter., 2001) . Many studies revealed that there is a high prevalence of burnout among nurses worldwide, it can affect approximately 45% of medical and nursing staff .(Abdo, El-Sallamy, El-Sherbiny, & Kabbash., 2015) . Bases upon several studies 25% to 33% of critical care nurses have a symptom of sever burnout syndrome.(Moss, Good, Gozal, Kleinpell, & Sessler., 2016). BURNOUT AMONG NURSES AND QUALITY OF CARE
Panagiota Copanitsanou, Nikolaos Fotos, and Hero Brokalaki mentioned that negative effects may lead to poor patient outcomes due to the increased mortality, complications, and readmissions. With that being said, it is vital for nurses to work in an environment that is well staffed and trained without the use of having nurses work more hours than they already are required to. It is known that having good management, balanced work schedule, and a safe environment all contributes to nurses with less patient burnout which then can provide a higher quality of
Great job on your post, you made some really good points and subjections to help prevent safety issues related to nurse fatigue. In addition, Middaugh (2016), states that according to the ANA, “nurses and employers have a joint responsibility to reduce risks from nurse fatigue and help create a work-life balance”. In fact, during one of my rotation, I heard a nurse complaining of been tired after working 2 days on the row and was on her third shift back to back. She was supposed to be off that day but another nurse couldn’t be at the hospital so she was called in to replace that nurse.
A primary factor in risking patient safety is to have a high nurse-to-patient ratio. Hospitals and nursing homes must have policies and guidelines in place for the nurse-to-patient ratios, but the policies are continuously fluctuating to compensate for the shortage. In order for nurses to want to stay in this field, benefits and policies need to be modified. Everything is like a domino effect, if the nurses aren’t well rested and able to work properly the patients suffer. “Examining survey data from 95,499 nurses, we found much higher job dissatisfaction and burnout among nurses who were directly caring for patients in hospitals and nursing homes than among nurses working in other jobs or settings, such as the pharmaceutical industry.
With a nurse shortage, patients are not getting the best quality care they should be getting. Archive stated that hospital nurse staffing, is a matter of major concern because of the effects it can have on patient safety and the quality care patients deserve. Nursing-sensitive outcomes is an indicator of the quality care and can be defined as variable patient or family caregiver state, condition, or perception responsive to nursing intervention. Some unfortunate patient outcomes potentially sensitive to nursing care are shock, urinary tract infections (UTIs), pneumonia, longer hospital stays, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, failure to rescue, and 30-day mortality. Research has focused on negative rather than the positive patient outcomes for the simple reason that adverse outcomes are more likely to be documented in the medical record.
Research studies show that evidence-based practice (EBP) leads to higher quality care, improved patient outcomes, reduced costs, and greater nurse satisfaction than traditional approaches to care.1-5 Despite these favorable findings, many nurses remain inconsistent in their implementation of evidence-based care. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between nurses' duty hours, and patient outcome, emphasizing increased negative risk from nurse fatigue, relating to patient injury or death.
Just like a saw needs to stop being used in order to be sharpened, a nurse needs time off to recuperate; it’s as simple as that (Covey, 1989). It is important not to burn the candle at both ends, working more than the designated shifts and longer than 12 hours should be avoided. An example used regarding medication errors and working too many hours involves a nurse working a double shift on a pediatric oncology unit didn’t correctly prime an IV line and caused cardiac arrest in a patient (Kelley, 2004). Although nurses work three days a week, their hours remain the same as other full time employees that work the typical 5 day schedule. A nurse’s time off should be valued because they are the last line for patient care, they are the ones administering the medication the doctor prescribes and the pharmacy makes (Kelley, 2004).
Application of Kanter’s Theory in Reducing Work Stress and Burnout in Nursing Due to the rapidly changing health care system and the reduction of resources, nursing demands are greater which has led to work related stress and ultimately nursing burnout. (Hayes, Douglas, & Bonner, 2014; Kushner & Ruffin, 2015; Laschinger et al., 2003; Slatten, Carson & Carson, 2011). Nursing burnout impacts both the performance and profitability of a healthcare organization in addition to adversely affecting patient outcomes (Jennings, 2008; Kushner & Ruffin, 2015; Laschinger et al., 2003). Ordinarily for nurses, making a difference by caring for and helping others is gratifying (Hayes et al., 2014; Slatten et al., 2011); however nurses have had to endeavor several unfavorable circumstances such as long work hours, compassion fatigue, physical labor, human adversities, staffing shortages, lack of breaks, advanced technology, and poor interpersonal work relationships (Hayes et al., 2014; Jennings, 2008; Slatten et al., 2011); thus the effects of sustained exposure to increasingly demanding professional work conditions brought on by doubt and concern results in decreased nursing satisfaction, lack of perceived support, psychological difficulties such as demoralization,
According to the data from Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau of Health Professions (2013), there were 2.8 million Registered Nurses (RNs) and 690,000 Licensed Practice Nurses (LPNs) were working in the period from 2008-2010, in the United States. The nursing workforce grew substantially in 2000s, by RNs growing by more than 24.1 percent and LPNs by more than 15.5 percent. The population of nurses are facing multiple challenges at the workplace, such as shortage in staffing, nurse turnover, increased workload, long working hours, poor relationship with co-workers, lack of support from the management, and eventually these challenges create high level of nurse burnout. It is estimated that job- related burnout measure using the Maslach Burnout inventory – Human Services Survey, 36.5 % of nurses having high level of burnout. The researchers at the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Nursing, estimates if nurse burnout reduces by 10 %, could prevent thousands of hospital acquired infections and reduce the health care expense (Potera, 2012).
Nurses experienced unsatisfied work environment, fatigue, burnout and increased in career change leading to the nursing