Putting A Stop to Nursing Burnout Before It Starts

Abstract

Burnout is defined as physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. Nursing burnout is frequently seen within this profession. Questions have arisen on whether or not nursing burnout formulates during the working phase or before while attending nursing school. If students present signs and symptoms of nursing burnout during nursing school and before entering the professional field, these factors may predispose these new graduates to experience burnout earlier in their professional careers than new graduates who did not experience this. A systematic review of the literature was conducted. A Boolean search was used with the keywords: nursing burnout, nursing students, new graduate nurses, and nursing school. Six articles met the criteria for inclusion in this systematic review of the literature. Two themes were identified: emotional responses and coping skills, and emotional responses and year of study. The strength of a student’s coping skills is a consistent theme in each of the articles studied. The stress is not felt equally however within each year of a 4-year program. First and fourth year students report significantly less stress than those in their second and third year. Emotional exhaustion during the second and third years creates difficulties as the student prepares to enter professional practice in the fourth year. A process to recognize factors in a student, which predisposes them to burnout once they enter professional practice, is needed. In doing so, recognizing emotional exhaustion early will help students to develop stronger coping skills and promote behaviors that will lower the risk of burnout.