Registered Nurses and The Culture of Nursing Burnout in a Canadian Surgical Burn Unit
Date
2019-09-17
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Abstract
The Canadian health care system is facing critical nursing shortages resulting in extensive wait lists and diminishing quality of care due to, among other things, burnout and turnover of nurses. Burnout among nurses has traditionally been researched from an individualistic lens; in other words, the nurse experiencing burnout is studied. However, by researching burnout from a cultural perspective, I was able to learn about aspects of burnout that extend beyond individual nurses. In order to address nursing burnout, it is important to first obtain a thorough understanding of the role that the culture of organizations can play in allowing for burnout. Because individual problems or experiences happen within cultural contexts, they cannot be divorced from each other. In this thesis, I seek to inform this complex subject using an adapted ethnographic approach. This study took place on a surgical burn unit. Five registered nurse participants were observed and eight participants interviewed about their experiences of the unit, its culture, the demands they face, and their coping strategies. Data from ten observational shifts and eight semi-structured interviews, including interviews with key stakeholders, were analyzed. Participants all reported signs and symptoms associated with burnout which were also observed in daily practice. Interestingly, all participants expressed similar experiences of burnout indicative of a culture of nursing burnout within the unit. Varying reasons for this, both stated and observed, are explored in this thesis.
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Keywords
burnout, culture, ethnography, health care
Citation
Tilley, A. N. (2019). Registered Nurses and The Culture of Nursing Burnout in a Canadian Surgical Burn Unit (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.