It is the start of 2023 and news of nurses protesting has made headlines across social media. However this comes as no surprise as nurses still facing immense burnout. According to the February 2023  report of The National Council of State Boards of Nursing, 100,000 nurses left the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic in the past two years. The findings as also displayed there's a 3.3% decline in the U.S. nursing workforce in the past two years. Although this news is extremely alarming, it comes as no surprise due to the constant research over the past decade indicating that nurses are emotionally and mentally affected.

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For example, various studies have indicated that nurses are becoming increasingly stressed due to working conditions, resulting in emotional and mental exhaustion. The high expectations placed alongside working in highly stressful environments, long shifts, and limited resources are all forming grave issues (de Oliveira et al., 2019). Besides that, nurses are having to deal with emotional responses from patients and family members that leave them with emotional burdens due to witnessing death, mourning, and helpless health outcomes. The normalization of emotional burdens among nurses results in continuous emotional distress that consequently triggers mental disorders. 

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A culmination of  these negative effects are realities that nurses are expected to take on as the norm. Burnout and stress are normal with how fast paced the profession is, but depression and anxiety should never be accepted as normal. Especially as the rates of nurses leaving the profession increase, the remaining nurses will be left with the burden of caring for more patients and increasing the rate of burnout. Although these realities sound frightening, there are many possible solutions to counteract these issues.

 

Sources:

De Oliveira, S. M., de Alcantara Sousa, L. V., Vieira Gadelha, M. D. S., & do Nascimento, V. B. (2019). Prevention actions of burnout syndrome in nurses: An integrating literature review. Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health: CP & EMH, 15(1), 64–73. https://doi.org/10.2174/1745017901915010064

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Liu Guixia, Zhang Hui. (2020). A study on burnout of nurses in the period of COVID-19. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences. 9(3), 31-36. ttps://doi.org/10.11648/j.pbs.20200903.12 

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Contributed by Nermen Elkallini