Article Review: Burnout and Nurse to Patient Ratio

Nurse Burnout

Burnout and Nurse to Patient Ratio

‘Burnout syndrome and nurse-to-patient ratio in the workplace’ is an article written by Patton, Gutsan, Willis, and Coustasse. These authors define nurse burnout and highlight the factors that cause it. According to the article the condition (Burnout Syndrome) comprises of depersonalization, personal accomplishment, and emotional exhaustion. It is a menace that is gradually growing in the medical work environment. Inadequate nurse-patient ratios tops as the leading factor that contributed to the escalation of nurse burnout. The authors of the article argue that transformations in the health care model have been attributed to the inadequacy of nurses. With a shortage of the workforce, the available nurses are overworked and they end up failing to satisfy patients entirely. 

From the article one can deduce that the authors understand that nursing is an occupation that demands a lot and is therefore likely to be stressful. Nurses have to deal with some cases that they were not trained on or sometimes a patient might be difficult to handle. These put nurses in a situation where they are mostly unprepared to handle because of either lack of sufficient training or support (Gutsan et al., 2018). They are left with a lot of pressure which they must contain all by themselves.

The article has also looked into how issues to do with unscheduled work shifts can be exhausting and stressful to RNs. The nurse-to-patient ratio is a crucial matter as it determines how productive a nurse will be. Impacting too much work pressure on a few medical practitioners will always jeopardize patients’ safety and also kill the work morale of the nurses. To control this syndrome satisfaction of the nurses in their position must be addressed to ensure there is proper management of personnel and resources.

References

Gutsan, E., Patton, J., Willis, W., & Coustasse, A. (2018). Burnout syndrome and nurse-to-patient ratio in the workplace.