Caring for COVID‐19 infected patients admitted to redesignated coronavirus ICUs: Impact on nurse stress and burnout

Abstract

Objectives: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic globally impacted healthcare due to surges in infected patients and respiratory failure. The pandemic escalated nursing burnout syndrome (NBS) across the workforce, especially in critical care environments, potentially leading to long-term negative impact on nurse retention and patient care. To compare self-reported burnout scores of frontline nurses caring for COVID-19 infected patients with burnout scores captured before the pandemic and in non-COVID-19 units from two prior studies.Methods: The descriptive study was conducted using frontline nurses working in eight critical care units based on exposure to COVID-19 infected patients. Nurses were surveyed in 2019 and in 2020 using Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Well Being Instrument, and Stress-Arousal Adjective Checklist (SACL) instruments.Researchers explored relationships between survey scores and working in COVID-19 units.Results: Nurses working in COVID-19 units experienced more emotional exhaustion (EE) and depersonalization (DP) than nurses working in non-COVID units (p= .0001).Pre-COVID nurse burnout scores across six critical care units (EE mean = 15.41; p= .59) were lower than burnout scores in the COVID-19 intensive care units (EE mean = 10.29; p= .74). Clinical significance (p= .08) was noted by an EE subscale increase from low prepandemic to moderate during the pandemic. Conclusion:Pinpointing associations between COVID-19 infection and nurse burnout may lead to innovative strategies to mitigate burnout in those caring for the most critically ill individuals during future pandemics. Further research is required to establish causal relationships between sociodemographic and work-related psychological predictors of NBS.

Nurses’ Job Burnout and Resilience in Neonatal Intensive Care Units

“…These findings are consistent with those of a study conducted in Oman on various nursing populations 31. Working longer shifts and having a heavier workload owing to a nurse shortage have been linked to job burnout 46,47. In their study, Roney et al47 discovered that increasing levels of burnout were attributable to the increased effort associated with working an extra shift.…”

“…31 Working longer shifts and having a heavier workload owing to a nurse shortage have been linked to job burnout. 46,47 In their study, Roney et al 47 discovered that increasing levels of burnout were attributable to the increased effort associated with working an extra shift. Similarly, Kumar et al 46 discovered that nurses who worked extra shifts in the previous month were considerably more likely to experience burnout.…”

Interventions to reduce burnout and improve the mental health of nurses during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A systematic review of randomised controlled trials with meta‐analysis

“…Although the results of the meta‐analysis were limited due to high heterogeneity, which were possibly caused by the huge variety of interventions, the results consistently indicated that interventions targeting nurses with direct involvement with COVID‐19 patients yielded greater improvements. This could be attributed to the heightened baseline stress with an additional worry of working in a critical care environment such as COVID‐19 ICUs (Roney et al., 2022), although there was evidence disputing this claim (Tamrakar et al., 2021). Another factor could be the substantial increase in workload brought about by the pandemic (Qureshi et al., 2022), resulting in time scarcity for much‐needed reactional activities.…”

An Exploration of Student Nurses’ Experiences of Burnout during the COVID-19 Pandemic Using the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI)

“…In the U.K., the incidence of nursing burnout in general has been exacerbated by the additional demands that COVID-19 created [ 9 , 10 ]. Already stretched services experienced increased demand upon resources as well as increased staff vacancies across the National Health Service (NHS).…”