User:Darryannamoore/Nursing shortage

Impacts on healthcare[edit]
Nursing shortages (including low hospital-level nurse-to-patient ratios) have been linked to the following effects:


 * Increased nurses’ patient workloads
 * Increased risk for error, thereby compromising patient safety
 * Increased risk of spreading infection to patients and staff
 * Increased risk of adverse outcomes such as pneumonia, shock, cardiac arrest, and urinary tract infections
 * Increased risk for occupational injury
 * Increase in nursing turnover, thereby leading to greater costs for the employer and the health care system
 * Increase in nurses' perception of unsafe working conditions, contributing to increased shortage and hindering local or national recruitment efforts

Impact on Nurses Directly and the Result

Nursing shortages have an impact on the healthcare environment in all aspects of nursing, but it does impact other nurses directly causing the nursing community to face issues of burnout. Burnout is a feeling that nurses experience when an overwhelming amount of workload is placed on a nurse, causing that nurse to experience exhaustion in many different aspects, a sense of depersonalization, and a sense of not feeling accomplished. The feeling of burnout tends to contribute to feelings of stress. In relation to burnout, nurses are known to experience sleep disturbance in which consist of trouble falling asleep as well as poor quality sleep. Sleep disturbance correlated directly with stress and burnout presenting that nurses with a higher level of sleep disturbance had low levels of stress management. The issue of burnout tends to be a common factor many nurses face due to the stress from an overwhelming workload, which makes it hard for some nurses to fall in love with their career field.

Nursing Shortage and Burnout
Nurses are already put under an immense amount of stress on a daily basis due to their high demanding job. With the spike with the Covid 19 pandemic there has been a drop of nurses who want to work due to the danger of becoming infected with Covid. The shortage of nurses is resulting in nursing burnouts where nurses are exhausted and unable to perform to the best of their abilities. The nurses are being overwork and working longer shifts than usual using them exhaustion and physical and mental health problems. There should be a movement to try and hire more nurses or stop over scheduling certain people.