Level of Burnout in Affecting the Overall Job Satisfaction Among Nurses - Paper Example

The health industry has been growing dramatically across the world with the expansion mostly affecting the industry. This situation has led to the creation of jobs for nurses at various sections of healthcare facilities being established. The reason for the outcrop of this services is due to the increase of healthcare conditions affecting different populations which include the elderly and the children. The units which care for the children known as the pediatric care unit is among the busiest sections of the healthcare facilities, which requires an intensive supply of the healthcare providers such as nurses, clinicians, and doctors. The globe is experiencing a shortage of nurses, which leaves the nurses serving various units which include the pediatric sections, which leaves nurses burn out from excess work (Kalisch, Lee, & Rochman, 2010). The level of burnout affects their overall job satisfaction. This situation is especially common in public facilities where they have many visitors due to the relatively affordable medical services. The same situation is ineventable in private facilities where the nurses also experience the job unsatisfaction due to the high level of burnout experienced. The jobs satisfaction is a vital element that influences the turnover of the nurses (Chien & Yick, 2016). The literature review shall focus on the perception of the nurses job satisfaction and level of burnout in private hospital pediatric care unit.

The Nurses Perception in Job Satisfaction among Nurses in Pediatric Care Unit at a Private Hospital?

In a survey to explain the job satisfaction among pediatric nurses more than five hundred nurses were recruited for the study (Ernst, Franco, Messmer, & Gonzalez, 2004). The study indicated various factor that had a high correlation with the correlation with the level of job satisfaction among the pediatric nurses in the private hospitals. The factors included payments, recognitions and rewards at the pediatric setting, self-efficacy, and the satisfaction by the organization of a nurses work, and workload (Ernst et al., 2004). The above factors were also complemented by the experience a nurse had for the service they were providing. The pediatric care unit has various sections which include medical, oncology, and critical care where specialized nurses work to save children lives (Sekol, & Kim, 2014). A study was conducted in a private facility in Southern California to ascertain the job satisfaction among pediatric nurses in various sections of the private pediatric hospitals. 240 nurses were part of the survey where the level of burnout was used to determine the amount of job satisfaction (Sekol & Kim, 2014). The data was collected using a questionnaire, and various regression procedure and ANOVA tests were conducted. The findings indicated that the nurses working in the oncology section experienced the least of burnout. For this reason, they were considered to have a high rate of job satisfaction. The reason for low levels of burnout was due to the flow of patients in the oncology section of the facility. Few children presented to the hospital with cancer cases, and even so, there was an adequate number of nurses working as a team that reduced the amount of work being accomplished by a single nurse. On the other end, the nurses in the surgical section experienced the highest level of burnout at work. This situation was attributed to the reduced job satisfaction. There was more work to be done by a single nurse as compared to other sections, which left nurses tired and working overtime to offload the number of visiting patients. The nurses in this section were also compelled to work harder to meet the standards of the private facilities which forced them to spend more time serving one patient (Sekol & Kim, 2014). The huge volume of work in this section was linked to the increased number of cases either from within or outside the facility that required a surgical service from the nurses.

Additionally, the findings indicated that the reason for small burnout and increased job satisfaction for nurses in the oncology section was due to the regular support from the facility they received. They were provided with educational and mentoring support that enabled them to carry out their mandate at ease as compared to the nurses from the other sections (Sekol & Kim, 2014). The skills they acquired allowed them to carry out the complex tasks with great ability that increased their level of satisfaction at the facility. For this reason, the oncology nurses in the hospital reported low levels of burnout and stress-related to work. Job satisfaction affects nurses turnover in both the facility and a section of the hospital (Chien & Yick, 2016). In another study 139 respondents composed of nurses from private facilities to ascertain their level of job satisfaction. The results indicated that nurses who worked in favorable environment for instance, where their host facility offered in job pieces of training there was a low level of stress related to work. Additionally, those nurses who had served for a long time reported a high degree of job satisfaction. These nurses could also handle a lot of task without experiencing a burnout and hence less stress and more satisfaction at work. These factors were also reported key to retention of nurses at the pediatric facilities. For instance, nurses would move to facilities that handled less workload to be able to enjoy their service delivery. They would also leave organization due to its culture of not supporting nurses in may be improving their skills of service delivery (Chien & Yick, 2016). Nurses also prefer to serve in facilities where nurses are offered good remunerations for their services. Nurses view better pay as a motivation to provide extra service at the pediatric hospitals or units. Private facilities prefer high-performing nurses with tremendous experience and messing at work risks one position in the hospital. This situation creates a state of job insecurity in the mind of the nurses. They, therefore, work under extreme pressure which results in stress and hence increased burnout at work. The outcome is decreased job satisfaction among the nurses and hence increased turnover. This leads to an acute shortage of nurses in particular facilities which also impact other nurses who have to work harder to cover for the nurses who quit their positions.

Private pediatric facilities primary intention apart from providing quality of care to the patient, it also has a goal of making profits. For this reason, they have to work satisfy their clients to secure more patients (Aron, 2015). The nurses play a direct role in fulfilling both of the above vital goals. For this reason, they are the one who faces the pressure from the management to perform to their best skills. This kind of pressure makes the nurses work extra harder which leads to stress and hence less job satisfaction. Facilities that more nurses record low levels of stress due to share goals.

The Level of Burnout among Nurses in Pediatric Care Unit at a Private Hospital

Burnout is defined a syndrome that leads to reduced self-accomplishment caused by emotional exhaustion and depersonalization due to the experiences at the workplace. Nurses continue to experience burnouts at various units they serve in healthcare facilities. The situation is not different in private pediatric hospitals, where the environment is characterized by intensive work that leads to stress and burnout (Azeem, Nazir, Zaidi, & Akhtar, 2014). Nursing is perceived as a profession with high demands which leads to stress. Nurses are supposed to offer their physical and psychological supports in at time beyond their ability which leaves them fatigued both psychologically and physically. For instance, the nurses have to encounter cases of patients with agony, incapacity, loneliness, and death. These situations leave the nurses stressed which increases their level of burnout. For example, its very stressful for a nurse in a pediatric facility to handle the death of a child, while undergoing treatment (Azeem, et al., 2014). The sadness on the parents faces when they receive the breaking news makes the situation worse. The nurses feel as if they are not competent which also affects their level of self-esteem in providing services to subsequent clients. Some nurses revert to trauma which affects their health and subsequently their ability to dispense services.

In pediatric facilities at private hospitals, nurses are offer services for long periods. Apart from high demand for their professional skills, they are supposed to serve with compassion which requires their emotional involvement during caregiving. The outcome of this situation is elevated levels of burnout that leaves nurses exhausted throughout during the work hours (Aytekin, Yilmaz, & Kuguoglu, 2013). In pediatric care units especially in private facilities to improve the quality of attention technological tools that help in monitoring the progress of the patients is used. For this reason, the nurse in charge is expected to monitor it from time to time to ensure the patient do not develop any other complication or responds as expected during and after the treatment. Such constant handling of technology and the need to stay alerted just to monitor a patient through a machine is stressful and increases the level of burnout (Aytekin et al., 2013). Children sickness requires a multidisciplinary team to increase the chances of conducting a reliable diagnosis and deciding on the treatment of the conditions. For this to happen, a multi-disciplinary team is required to do an assessment of each patient. Such instances are full of misunderstandings and arguments since different team members give different explanations for the conditions which leave people tired making it difficult to come to a conclusion. The situation is even worse to the nurses who is supposed to implement the recommendations when the teams arrive at a wrong decision. This means that the patient may develop a complication of die in worst scenarios. This instance will affect the nurse tremendously which may increase the level of burnout (Aytekinet al., 2013). This situation can be termed as a bad working environment which can be corrected by providing adequate working mechanism for teams working towards a common goal in a pediatric care unit.

Studies have revealed that the type and length of a working shift among nurses have an impact on the level of burnout (Jennings, 2008). In a study where a 12 hour and eight-hour shift, 105 nurses were involved in a survey. The findings indicated that the nurses who worked in a 12-hour shift and especially start at night, experienced more burnout. At night there were few nurses which mean the ones available had to handle more tasks, some which were out of their practice (Jennings, 2008). In this study payment was not a motivation to work even in odd moments, so it was not considered. Those who served in the 8-hour shift also suffered burnout but only when working at night. The day shifts despite being long or short, the reported on the level of burnout was slightly lower than when working at night. The 12-hour shift both day and night were linked to the high burnout levels. Additionally, the same study reported on the gender specific level of burnout in the pediatric private facility. Since nursing is predominantly a female profession, the study reported on this attributes to show their status in the field. Unfortunately, it was repo...