Abstract
The work aims to emphasize a problem related to nursing burnout. The issue is important to address since it affects patient care quality and patient safety. Nurses’ professional burnout could be partially solved by the three actions suggested in the paper: creating a positive spiritual climate at the workplace, managing emotional intelligence, and increasing nurses’ motivation to work. Several works related to the topic had been analyzed throughout the paper. The work concludes that the most efficient way to contribute to the problem solution is raising nurses’ salaries to enhance their motivation to work.
Keywords: nursing, burnout, motivation, problem.
Introduction
The issue of professional burnout is topical in the field of nursing. Nursing burnout is a problem that is primarily associated with overwork, social climate, and emotional intelligence (Mudallal et al., 2017). Due to the poor social climate, the high workload, and nurse’s inability to manage their emotions and lack of stress management, such problem as a professional burnout occurs (Pérez-Fuentes et al., 2018). It is important to address the problem since its consequences negatively influence the nurse’s patient care and job performance (Pérez-Francisco et al., 2020). Anything that is a threat to the safety of the patient and the quality of the service should be assessed in order to prevent adverse outcomes (Dall’Ora et al., 2020). That is why nursing burnout is an urgent problem that needs to be analyzed and solved. Three actions that would possibly contribute to the partial solution of the problem are creating a positive spiritual climate at the workplace, managing emotional intelligence, and increasing nurses’ motivation to work.
Positive Spiritual Climate
The first action to be taken is creating a positive spiritual climate at the workplace. According to Wu et al. (2020), a positive spiritual climate contributes to the rising value of nursing work. That highlights a crucial point that the climate at the workplace should primarily emphasize the high value and importance of the work done by nurses. It relates to the professionals working and communicating with the nursing professionals and the patients that are served by nurses. For example, some workshops that provide more information about communication ethics among the employees could be organized. That would facilitate a positive social climate for all the employees, and particularly nurses. Thus, a positive spiritual climate could be reached by increasing the value of the nurses’ work. That could be done by increasing the contribution of the nurses to the decision-making processes. According to Mudallal et al. (2017), nurses’ inability to take part in decision-making leads to professional burnouts. In order to raise the amount of nurses’ involvement, the health care policy related to the decision-making processes should be assessed.
Managing Emotional Intelligence
The next action to be taken in order to prevent the problem is referred to the nurses’ abilities to manage their emotional intelligence. Undeveloped emotional intelligence, specifically difficulties in managing emotions, communication skills, and stress level increase chances to have of professional burnout (Pérez-Fuentes et al., 2018). Hence, it is vital for nurses to learn how to manage their emotions, improve interpersonal communication skills, and control their stress levels. The education programs for the nurses could be improved so that they involve the courses related to emotions management. Alternatively, seminars about controlling emotions and stress for nurse practitioners in the clinics and organizations should be provided. While nursing education emphasizes the professional field knowledge, it is also essential to teach on the ways to manage time, cope with stress, and control emotions. Emotional intelligence increases the employee’s motivation to work, happiness, and success in professional life (Arora, 2017). The professional with a higher level of self-motivation and happiness is less likely to face professional burnout. Thus, the ability to manage emotions and work-stress is a worthy factor to address and to educate on.
Enhancing Nurses’ Motivation
The third step to contributing to the nursing burnout problem is enhancing nurses’ motivation to work. One way to do so is to raise the salary for the nurse’s work. Such rewards as a salary increase an employee’s motivation to work and job satisfaction (Asaari et al., 2019). Dall’Ora et al. (2020) indicate the relation between the low rewards and nursing burnout. According to Göktepe et al. (2020), salary is one of the primary factors affecting the nurses’ job motivation. For that reason, it would be logical to assume that the growth of the salary is going to positively affect nurses’ attitude towards the work. Hence, it will decrease the likeliness of professional burnouts for nurses. Nurses’ work is quite complicated and it requires strong dedication and specific knowledge. Thus, the salary for the nurses’ work should be assessed in a way so that professionals feel the value of the work done. Financial reward is an efficient instrument that could be implemented to achieve a high level of motivation among nurses.
Limitations, Drawbacks, and Inevitable Costs
Each proposed action, however, might have limitations, drawbacks, and inevitable costs. Increasing salaries for nurses is a complex action that should be assessed not only by the organization but by the public health managers, health care professionals, and financial experts. Since the salary distribution is a compacted economic and political process, it could be difficult to achieve the growth of the nurses’ salary. In addition, it requires quite a long period of time to be embodied. Next, managing the emotional intelligence action is an action that is strongly dependent on the personal characteristics of the nurses. That means that even if the proper workshops would be provided for the professionals, there is no guarantee that they will be able to manage their emotions and cope with stress as a result. Different people have various backgrounds, psychological peculiarities, and mental abilities. Moreover, modifying the nursing education programs might be difficult to achieve. The reason is that in order to change the education program, the education managers and professionals should be reached. It is a time-consuming process to implement new changes into the already existing and established educational programs.
The Best Possible Action
I think that the best possible action for addressing the issue of nursing burnout is to increase nurses’ motivation by raising the salary. Even though this approach has specific drawbacks and limitations, it should have high effectiveness. Since motivation and level of job satisfaction primarily influences the professional burnout level, it is essential to keep workers motivated and satisfied. The reward, such as salary, would make a great contribution to preventing professional burnouts among nurses. Such an action is likely to increase their self-motivation level and positively impact their attitude towards the work. It is fair to admit the importance of the nurse’s work and contribute to their motivation. Considering the fact that healthcare is interested in high-quality medical services, they would consider the application of such an approach of increasing the salaries for nurses.
Conclusion
In conclusion, nursing burnout is a severe problem that needs to be addressed since its outcomes negatively influence patients’ safety and overall professional performance. The problem could be partially solved and prevented by three possible actions mentioned in work: creating a positive spiritual climate at the workplace, raising the value of the nurse’s work; contribute to the nurses’ abilities to manage emotions, communicate, and manage work-stress by providing them with the additional education on the topic of emotional intelligence; and enhancing nurses’ motivation to work by applying additional rewards, such as salary growths. Even though each proposed action has its own limitations and drawbacks, they are still worthy of considering as a possible solution to the raised problem. I believe that the best possible solution is to address the issue of increasing nurses’ salaries. It is the most assessable and fast solution that could affect nurses directly. Such an approach will positively influence the motivation of the nursing professionals and decrease the likelihood of burnout.
References
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