• Dynamics (Pembroke, Ont.) · Jan 2012

    Review

    Burnout in critical care nurses: a literature review.

    • Kirstin Epp.
    • Grey Nuns Community Hopsital, Edmonton, AB. kirstinepp@gmail.com
    • Dynamics. 2012 Jan 1; 23 (4): 25-31.

    AbstractBurnout and its development in critical care nurses is a concept that has received extensive study, yet remains a problem in Canada and around the world. Critical care nurses are particularly vulnerable to developing burnout due to the chronic occupational stressors they are exposed to, including high patient acuity, high levels of responsibility, working with advanced technology, caring for families in crisis, and involved in morally distressing situations, particularly prolonging life unnecessarily. The purpose of this article is to explore how the chronic stressors that critical care nurses are exposed to contribute to the development of burnout, and strategies for burnout prevention. A review of the literature between the years 2007 and 2012 was conducted and included the search terms burnout, moral distress, compassion fatigue, intensive care, critical care, and nursing. The search was limited to the adult population, English language, and Western cultures. The results revealed that nurse managers play a crucial role in preventing burnout by creating a supportive work environment for critical care nurses. Strategies for nurse managers to accomplish this include being accessible to critical care nurses, fostering collegial relationships among the different disciplines, and making a counsellor or grief team available to facilitate debriefing after stressful situations, such as a death. In addition, critical care nurses can help prevent burnout by being a support system for each other and implementing self-care strategies.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…