The words "burnout" and "nursing" are all too often mentioned in the same breath. If you talk to enough nurses, you'll hear plenty of stories of burnout that could make your hair stand on end.
Sadly, many nurses feel that burnout is unavoidable, while others take a proactive stance against this condition that impacts our profession so deeply. As dedicated, hard-working caregivers, we must live with the potential for burnout, but the potential for healthy living is a parallel reality that is also within our grasp.
The burnout blues
From mandatory overtime and high nurse-patient ratios to on-the-job bullying and harassment, nurses can feel threatened from all sides in the midst of trying to provide the best possible patient care.
A beleaguered nurse may feel that she has nowhere to turn when faced with too many patients to care for, horizontal violence from her colleagues, intimidation from management, condescension from physicians, and a sense that she can never do what's expected of her in the time allotted for her shift.
This nurse may eat unhealthy food on the run, run the risk of dehydration and push her body to its limits of endurance, all while fearing for the longevity of her job as her hospital is consolidated into a larger health system. This may be an extreme picture, but unfortunately not altogether unbelievable.
Another nurse may feel that he has nowhere to turn for support, with management breathing down his neck, his "productivity" being closely monitored, and his practice of spending time talking with patients criticized as being "unproductive." Wanting to provide the most excellent possible care in the midst of such stressors, this nurse may feel pushed to the edge, running the risk of abandoning the profession altogether in pursuit of a more balanced life.
The "burnout blues" are sung by many a nurse, but isn't there a way to sing an entirely different song without leaving a profession that we love?
It begins with awareness
Burnout often manifests insidiously, building up beneath our emotional radar, as we spiral into a whirlpool that eventually sucks us down into a state that can feel insurmountable.
That said, when our awareness is raised and we recognize the potential for burnout, we have a leg up on the situation. It's easy to just keep our noses to the proverbial grindstone and soldier on with nary a thought for our well-being, but more nurses are realizing that self-care is a practice to foster, nurture and share enthusiastically with colleagues and administrators alike.
Engaging in prevention
Engaging in the prevention of burnout can be a personal journey, one that the individual nurse practices quietly. However, burnout prevention can also be a collective endeavor, and this can be a much more powerful way in which we care for ourselves (and each other) amidst the stress of providing nursing care.
If management and staff mutually take a stand in the pursuit of increased balance and self-care (especially with management leading the way and setting the organizational tone for this endeavor), this can foster a culture wherein burnout prevention and nurse wellness are accepted and actively encouraged.
Moving toward balance
In the end, it's all about balance. Granted, a nurse may find it quite challenging — if not impossible — to find balance when his workplace is dysfunctional, poorly managed and focused on profits and productivity rather than people.
However, if an institution embraces a culture of burnout prevention and wellness, patient care will no doubt improve as nurse attrition, absenteeism and burnout decrease. Individuals can take responsibility for themselves, and facilities and organizations can indeed champion nurse wellness by creating a culture of wellness.
In the end, nurse wellness and burnout prevention really do impact multiple bottom lines: people, profitability and patient outcomes. Therefore, a culture of nurse wellness will create positive ripples, and this is a gift that literally keeps on giving.
