We all have those mornings when the alarm goes off, we hit snooze, pull the covers over our head and pray that time would stop just so we could recharge a little. The thought of crawling out of bed, fighting traffic and battling another long day at work can feel completely overwhelming and daunting. Trust me, you are not alone! Rarely does anyone pop out of bed like a piece of bread out of the toaster ready and rearing to go to their place of employment. However, it seems like nurses around the world have a tougher time facing the day with the demands and stresses of their jobs. As a student in a BSN degree program, it’s important to learn from the get go how to handle the pressures of work to prevent burnout.
There was a new study in which the results were posted in a press release that states that many nurses around the world are suffering from job burnout. The study was conducted by the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Nursing’s Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research which interviewed 100,000 nurses in nine countries.
“The percentage of nurses reporting high burnout was over a third in most countries and decidedly higher in South Korea and Japan, near 60 percent in both countries,” said lead author Linda Aiken, PhD, RN, director of the Center of Health Outcomes and Policy Research at Penn Nursing. “Job dissatisfaction varied from 17 percent in Germany to around a third of nurses in most countries and a high of 60 percent dissatisfied in Japan. Almost half of nurses in all countries, except in Germany, and many more than half of the nurses in a few of the countries, lacked confidence that patients could manage their care after discharge,” said Dr. Aiken.
So how can you avoid becoming one of the dissatisfied masses? Well, I think finding the right place of employment is key. If you research a variety of hospitals to work at and most of the employees look dower, the chances are they are unhappy and you will be too. Ask other nurses if they like their place of employment, if they have reasonable people in management and if they get along with their co-workers. The study shows that, “Hospitals with better work environments had lower burnout, lower likelihood of job dissatisfaction and a decrease in reports of little or no confidence in discharge readiness of patients.”
I can’t help but notice that the countries with the highest burnout and lowest nurse satisfaction rates do NOT include the United States. Fortunately we have strict nurse to patient ratios, better benefits and more options for recovering patients.
Prevention is key to avoiding burnout and knowing what to look for is vital for students in an accelerated RN to BSN program.
To read the complete article mentioned in this post, please visit
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/uops-tkn120811.php
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