IMPACT OF NURSING BURNOUT AND WORKLOAD TO SAFETY OF STAFF AND

PATIENTS
Impact of Nursing Burnout and Workload to Safety of Staff and Patients

1. Background

Nurses play a pivotal role in the healthcare sector. Healthcare outcomes are highly

dependent on the quality delivery of nursing services at the health facilities and also in primary

care. Critical to healthcare is the issue of patient and staff safety. Healthcare is designed around

safety. This is because there are standardized procedures that should always be adhered to by the

nurses while delivering care. However, at times the nurses experience burnout and work overload

that adversely affect the safety of the patients and staff at the health institutions (Needleman and

Shekelle, 2019). Some of the causes of nursing burnout and high workload include inadequate

nursing staff at the facility, high number of patients to nursing ratio, and lack of proper planning

by the administration to allocate duties equitably. Nursing workload can be defined as the

existing ration between the patients and nursing professionals at a given facility within a given

timeframe. This paper would outline the significance of studying the topic nurse burnout and

workload and its impact of patient and staff safety.

2. Significance

The health outcomes of the patients and their safety rely heavily on the nursing

interventions at the care facilities. The objective of healthcare is to improve the quality of life of

patients and their wellbeing. Similarly, healthcare facility staff members would want to operate

in an environment that is safe for them. There are significant impacts to the safety and health

outcomes of the patients and staff when nurses experience high workloads and burnout. Any

health facility would want to offer high quality healthcare services to patients by improving their

health outcomes (Magalhães et al., 2017). Notably, the burnout of the nurses’ greatly affects the

Page 1 of 8
 IMPACT OF NURSING BURNOUT AND WORKLOAD TO SAFETY OF STAFF AND
PATIENTS
objective of the medical facilities. The underperformance would likely affect their income,

reputation and place them at a risk place of being sued for damages by both the staff members

and patients.

a. High Nurse Turnover rates

Moreover, in a facility where nurses experience burnout and excess workload there would

be a likely high employee turnover. Nurses are human beings who understand the important of

safe practice in healthcare. Burnout and excess workload like working for many hours exposes

the nurses to stress and psychological trauma. It is also a huge physical demand on their side to

keep up with the stressors while delivering quality care at the hospitals and medical facilities

(Hall et al., 2016). The factors surrounding workload and burnout can be interpreted by the

nurses as mistreatment and lack of regard for their welfare by the hospital administration. As

such, they may opt to resign and opt for new better ventures where their welfare is respected.

High turnover rates would affect quality healthcare delivery as the facility would behave to train

new nurses on their protocols and missions. This would affect patients who had formed

attachment with some of the patients (Nantsupawat, et al., 2016).

b. Medication Errors

Consequently, nursing burnout and excess workload would likely cause medication

errors. Medication errors cause untold suffering and death in many hospitals. Medication errors

are a major concern to healthcare. These errors not only contribute to poor health outcomes but

also cause healthcare facilities a lot of money to compensate. These adverse effects can easily

result when nurses are overburdened beyond their capacity. Although the medication errors can

Page 2 of 8
 IMPACT OF NURSING BURNOUT AND WORKLOAD TO SAFETY OF STAFF AND
PATIENTS
be caused by any medical practitioner, the probability of a medication error to be caused by a

nurse experiencing burnout is quite high. This makes the topic a very important factor because

the safety of the patients and staff are concerned. It takes only a simple error cause the death of a

patient (Cho et al., 2016; Fagerström et al., 2018).

c. Sick Leaves and Absenteeism

Consequently, nurses experiencing work overload and burnout would often take sick

leave and register high levels of absenteeism. At times the physical efforts by the nurses while

treating the patients can cause work related injuries. These injuries can include musculoskeletal

injuries and fatigue that may likely influence the employees to be absent from work (Möller and

Magalhãe, 2015). The trend of missing from work can cause adverse effects to healthcare service

delivery at the facility. This is because; in most cases nurses are delegated to work on certain

number of patients for a specified period of time. When one or two nurses experience burnout are

absent from work unannounced they would cause strain the remaining nurses who would have to

cover for their absent colleagues (Cho et al., 2016). While it may seem to be a common scenario,

it would eventually continue the cycle of burnout and excess workload. The outcome would be

increased health safety risks to both the staff and patients.

d. Communication Errors

The relationship between the nursing professionals and the patients is very critical

towards improving their quality of life. Stressed and depressed nurses who are worn out cannot

effectively communicate with patients. It is difficult for an effective communication to ensue

when one party lacks the focus, concentration and time (Aprilia et al., 2019). A nurse

Page 3 of 8
 IMPACT OF NURSING BURNOUT AND WORKLOAD TO SAFETY OF STAFF AND
PATIENTS
experiencing excess workload would not spend much time with a patient to develop a

meaningful health relationship. As such, the nurse may likely miss on crucial and critical cues

that would help improve the health outcome of the patient. In such cases, the nurses would rather

keep to themselves significant clues that are worth sharing with a medical professional. For

instance, a patient may experience reaction from an administered medication (MacPhee et al.,

2017). Without a nurse nearby, the client would likely experience adverse health outcomes. Also,

other staff members could experience miscommunication in the process of handing over duties at

the end of the day. The impact of miscommunication in healthcare can be devastating and should

be avoided as a priority. Thus, burnout and excess work load for the nurses affect their

relationship with the patients.

e. Health Associated Infections

This topic is also important because lack of adequate safety compliance due to nurse

burnout and excess workload could lead to health-care associated infections. Despite the

availability of the personal protective equipment for nurses and other medical professionals,

compliance to some of the regulations can be compromised. For instance, simple procedures like

washing of hands, not using enough protective equipment for patients with multi-resistant

pathogens can easily lead to spread of infections. Also, burn out can prompt a nurse to recap a

needle after use unknowingly and hence cause safety risk to themselves (Jansson et al., 2019). As

such, stressed nurses can affect the safety of other staff members in the facility by exposing them

to pathogens due to non-compliance to the safety regulations.

Page 4 of 8
 IMPACT OF NURSING BURNOUT AND WORKLOAD TO SAFETY OF STAFF AND
PATIENTS
3. Objectives

The aim of the teaching would be to impart information on how nurse burnout and workload

affects the safety of patients and staff in the health environment.

The impact of nursing burnout and workload to safety of patients and staff would be

demonstrated by explaining the various adverse outcomes that could arise and reinforcing them

with graphics for better clarification of the messages.

Outline of Topic

1. Background

a. Introduction of the topic to learners.

b. Definition of the key terminologies i.e. nurse burnout, nurse workload and healthcare

safety.

2. Significance of nurse burnout and workload to the safety of both patients and staff

members.

a. Medication Errors

b. Communication errors

c. Health Associated Infections

d. Sick Leaves and Absenteeism

e. High Nurse Turnover

3. Conclusion

Page 5 of 8
 IMPACT OF NURSING BURNOUT AND WORKLOAD TO SAFETY OF STAFF AND
PATIENTS

4. Conclusion

This topic was very important to demonstrate the impact of nurse burnout and workload to the

safety of staff and patients. As noted, when nurses are exposes to excess workload, the effect

would be felt by the staff members and the patients. Some of the safety concerns that would

result from the nurse burnout and workload include increased possibility of medication errors,

communication issues, frequent sick leaves and absenteeism, high turnover of nurses and

possibility of spreading health acquired infections. These risks would lower the safety level at the

medical facilities greatly and hence adverse health outcomes. Hence, this topic was important to

protect both staff members and the patients from safety risks that they could be exposed as a

result of being associated with nurses experiencing excess workload and burnout. The

significance of this topic was demonstrated by in-depth explanation of the suggested outcomes

likely to be experienced by the staff and patients and how they can compromise their quality of

health. Graphics also got included to emphasize on the importance of the topic and need to plan

and hire adequate nurses for health facilities.

In the future it will be important to safeguard the safety of staff and patients. This would be

possible through adequate planning and organization of the medical administrators to hire

adequate and enough qualified nurses to avoid burnout experiences and excess workload.

Further, it would be necessary for the medical facilities to develop and implement assessment

and evaluation measures routinely to determine the efficiency of healthcare services and collect

the opinions of nurses. These measures would help maintain a sustainable safety in hospitals for

both patients and staff by reducing nurse burnout and workload.

Page 6 of 8
 IMPACT OF NURSING BURNOUT AND WORKLOAD TO SAFETY OF STAFF AND
PATIENTS
5. References

Aprilia, T.D., Somantri, I. and Mirwanti, R., 2019. Nurses’ Mental Workload in Critical Care

Rooms and Emergency Department. Journal of Nursing Care, 2(3).

Cho, E., Lee, N.J., Kim, E.Y., Kim, S., Lee, K., Park, K.O. and Sung, Y.H., 2016. Nurse staffing

level and overtime associated with patient safety, quality of care, and care left undone in

hospitals: a cross-sectional study. International journal of nursing studies, 60, pp.263-271.

Fagerström, L., Kinnunen, M. and Saarela, J., 2018. Nursing workload, patient safety incidents

and mortality: an observational study from Finland. BMJ open, 8(4), p.e016367.

Hall, L.H., Johnson, J., Watt, I., Tsipa, A. and O’Connor, D.B., 2016. Healthcare staff wellbeing,

burnout, and patient safety: a systematic review. PloS one, 11(7), p.e0159015.

Jansson, M.M., Syrjälä, H.P. and Ala-Kokko, T.I., 2019. Association of nurse staffing and

nursing workload with ventilator-associated pneumonia and mortality: a prospective, single-

center cohort study. Journal of Hospital Infection, 101(3), pp.257-263.

MacPhee, M., Dahinten, V. and Havaei, F., 2017. The impact of heavy perceived nurse

workloads on patient and nurse outcomes. Administrative Sciences, 7(1), p.7.

Magalhães, A.M.M.D., Costa, D.G.D., Riboldi, C.D.O., Mergen, T., Barbosa, A.D.S. and Moura,

G.M.S.S.D., 2017. Association between workload of the nursing staff and patient safety

outcomes. Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da USP, 51.

Möller, G. and Magalhães, A.M.M.D., 2015. Bed baths: nursing staff workload and patient

safety. Texto & Contexto-Enfermagem, 24(4), pp.1044-1052.

Page 7 of 8
 IMPACT OF NURSING BURNOUT AND WORKLOAD TO SAFETY OF STAFF AND
PATIENTS
Nantsupawat, A., Nantsupawat, R., Kunaviktikul, W., Turale, S. and Poghosyan, L., 2016. Nurse

burnout, nurse‐reported quality of care, and patient outcomes in Thai hospitals. Journal of

Nursing Scholarship, 48(1), pp.83-90.

Needleman, J. and Shekelle, P.G., 2019. More ward nursing staff improves inpatient outcomes,

but how much is enough?.

Page 8 of 8