Healthcare is a sector that is the most intensively exposed to stress and emotional exhaustion or burnout. Medical workers deal with patients’ health problems that imply constant mental pressure and a high level of responsibility for a professional. The problem of low staffing in the industry depends on the emotional atmosphere in the workplace. Numerous studies found that nurses, especially those working in intensive care “experience higher levels of stress-related burnout” in comparison to other medical workers (Khamisa, Peltzer, & Oldenburg, 2013, p. 1). Such a tendency leads to nursing understaffing, increased workload, turnover and subsequent decrease of the patient-to-nurse ratio (Van den Heede et al., 2013). Therefore, patient care suffers from the errors in treatment and the low level of service quality provided by nurses. Consequently, the poor performance of medical workers might increase morbidity and mortality rates and lower the standards of healthcare practice.
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The growing rates of understaffing in nursing take their roots in the emotionally and psychically intense working environment that leads to various adverse outcomes. The burnout is resembled in decreasing of emotional energy, pessimistic demeanor and attitude to professional accomplishments (Khamisa et al., 2013). This problem needs to be applied with decisive measures and interventions grounding on valid nursing theory. One of the most efficient approaches applicable to the issue of nursing understaffing is self-care nursing theory. It is an application of the concept of self-care as a crucial element in nursing ensuring people to “sustain life and health” (Alliggod, 2013, p.222). This theory concerns the personal awareness of the individual under treatment about the state of their health condition (Alligood, 2013). It can be applied as a theoretical framework for the project due to its potential to raise nurses’ awareness of the possible individual ways to overcome difficulties and stay in the profession. When adjusted to the therapy of nurses exposed to burnout at the workplace, self-care theory might be addressed as the educational intervention aimed at the introduction of effective strategies and procedures for burnout minimization.
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