How Burnout Affects the Quality of Healthcare Delivery
Psychologist Herbert Freudenberger first used the term “burnout” in the 1970s to describe the symptoms experienced by people working in “helping” occupations whose jobs entail unyielding stress and high standards. “Nurses experiencing emotional exhaustion feel depleted, overworked, and lethargic. Alienation from job-related activities has included emotional separation from work responsibilities, dissociation from coworkers, and pessimistic attitudes toward the work environment. Burnout can affect daily tasks at work, home, and when caring for family. Nurses with burnout syndrome view responsibilities negatively, find it difficult to work, and have an absence of innovation, causing an overall reduced performance with all daily responsibilities.”15
The consequences associated with obsessive passion are profound. One study reported that more than a third of Pennsylvania RNs reported high levels of emotional exhaustion, a key component of burnout syndrome. The researchers suggest that if nurse burnout rates could be reduced to 10 percent from an average of 30 percent, Pennsylvania hospitals could prevent approximately 4,160 hospital- acquired infections annually with an associated savings of $41 million.16
These levels of dissatisfaction and burnout are not isolated to Pennsylvania but are reflected in a national study published in 2011, as shown in Figure 7.1. The percentage of nurses providing direct patient care who were classified as burned out ranged from 22 percent to 37 percent, depending on their work setting.17
Figure 7.1 Percentage of nurses dissatisfied and burned out, by setting and role, 2006-2007. (From McHugh, M.D. et al., Health Aff., 30, 202-210, 2011.)
Behaviors associated with obsessive passion and the resulting burnout are prevalent among physicians as well. In 2016, the Medscape Physician Lifestyle Report found that 46 percent of all physicians responded that they experienced burnout. This was a substantial increase from the 2013 Medscape Report in which burnout was reported in slightly below 40 percent.18
The symptoms of burnout that doctors reported included the following:
- ? Significant loss of enthusiasm for work
- ? Feelings of cynicism
- ? Low sense of personal accomplishment
A national survey published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 2012 reported that U.S. physicians suffer more burnout than any other group of American workers.19
