Introduction
The nursing shortage is an immense issue in healthcare since this profession plays a significant role in the medical process. The primary reason for this problem is burnout – physical and mental exhaustion from working in an unpleasant environment (Norful et al., 2023). Typically, nurses are forced to work overtime because of a load of patients, often without pay. Hence, this paper aims to view the shortage-related statistics, identify root causes for burnout, and review what nurses can do.
Statistics of Nursing Shortage
The personnel shortage is petrifying, and the U.S. has never experienced such a problem. According to Thomas et al. (2022), “in 2019, the national average turnover rate of registered nurses in the United States was approximately 17.8%” (p. 33). Nurses report having extra duties, especially since the pandemic began (Bakhamis et al., 2019). Additional tasks and hours cause the professional to exhaust twice as fast and quit. Therefore, the turnover rate is increasing, costing American healthcare a lot.
Inadequate workload primarily affects registered nurses (RNs) with various duties involving cooperation with other health specialists. White et al. (2019) notice that “across all RNs, 30% exhibited high levels of burnout, 31% were dissatisfied with their job, and 72% reported missing one or more necessary care tasks” (p. 2065). In general, the number of nurses dropped by more than 100,000 over the past few years (White et al., 2019). The numbers show that a prevalent number of nurses are unable to cope with the given duties for several reasons.
Causes for Nursing Burnout
The primary cause of turnover relates to an inadequate amount of time allocated for one task. Nurses complain that the patient load is massive while the time for assisting each is limited (Guttormson et al., 2022). Half of the registered nurses reported having double shifts due to the inability to help all patients for eight hours (Guttormson et al., 2022). In addition, burnout is caused by a lack of resources – numerous hospitals are not equipped sufficiently to perform high-quality care(Phillips et al., 2022). Thus, such insufficiency in time and technology creates nurses’ unwillingness to work efficiently.
The issue regularly occurs on sites with low-quality equipment and limited environmental resources. The studies fixated that California has the highest turnover rate – up to 40,000 nurses quit in the past two years (Woodward & Willgerodt, 2022). It is related to the rapid spread of COVID-19 – the virus that severely limited the professionals’ physical and emotional resources (Woodward & Willgerodt, 2022). Other states are expected to face this problem in the near future because of the challenging nature of the profession (Phillips et al., 2022).
The nursing shortage has a direct relation to burnout. When a healthcare facility lacks personnel, the specialists are forced to work twice harder to effectively receive positive health outcomes. However, 70% of all nurses working in stressful conditions tend to be dissatisfied with working due to emotional and physical strain (Phillips et al., 2022). Whenever a hospital lacks personnel, its operations reduce in quality.
Potential Solutions
The major strategy for the situation improvement would be improving the interpersonal relationship. It is proved that the friendlier the working environment is, the better health outcomes and the higher performance are (Wei et al., 2019). In order to be productive, nurses should advocate for necessary technological advancements to facilitate workflow (Botha et al., 2015; Velando-Soriano et al., 2020). Ultimately, it is suggested to promote therapeutic assistance programs to help nurses deal with their mental issues (Geuens et al., 2022). Such a holistic approach may help reduce the burnout level lowering the turnover rate.
Conclusion
In summary, the nursing shortage is a severe problem in American healthcare. It is primarily connected to poor working conditions resulting from limited technological and timing resources. Regularly, nursing shortages occur in public hospitals where the environment is distressing. The issue can be combated by promoting the development of interpersonal relationships, promoting therapeutic services, and investing in medical equipment.
References
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