Burnout in the Covid19 Nurses during times of Covid19 Pandemic in Selected Hospitals in

Tanza, Cavite

Introduction

Global health is about big saves and lofty goals like universal health coverage and ending
epidemics. This is why global health attracts lots of professionals from diverse fields . But in the
race to save lives, the field of global health tends to ignore a big risk: burnout. It was a concern
long before the Covid-19 pandemic, and might get worse because of the ongoing crisis. (Pai,
2020).

The World Health Organization (2019) estimates that nearly every fifth child or teenager
and every fourth adult will be affected by burnout at some point in his or her active life. The
situation is so widespread in developed countries that the WHO has added burnout to its list of
globally recognized diseases, defining it as a syndrome of “chronic workplace stress that has not
been successfully managed” which “includes feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, results
in increased mental distance from one's job and reduced professional efficacy.”

The term burnout was introduced by Freudenberger in 1974 when he observed a loss of
motivation and reduced commitment among volunteers at a mental health clinic . It was Maslach
who developed a scale, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), which internationally is the most
widely used instrument to measure burnout. (Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. 1981). According to
Maslach’s (1999) conceptualization, burnout is a response to excessive stress at work, which is
characterized by feelings of being emotionally drained and lacking emotional resources—
Emotional Exhaustion; by a negative and detached response to other people and loss of idealism
—Depersonalization; and by a decline in feelings of competence and performance at work—
reduced Personal Accomplishment.

Gallup’s (2018) study of the primary causes of employee burnout found that the main
factors have less to do with expectations for hard work and high performance, but are more
closely associated with the management and treatment of an individual. Oversized workloads,
unreasonable time pressures, lack of role clarity, lack of communication and support from
management and unfair treatment at work correlated most with incidents of burnout. When
employees say they often or always have enough time to do all of their work, they are 70% less
likely to experience high burnout. Similarly, when employees strongly agree that they are often
treated unfairly at work, they are 2.3 times more likely to experience burnout. Work
environments are the least equipped of all support networks to respond constructively to burnout
with just 27% of supervisors responding positively to incidents of burnout and only one in three
colleagues offering the support needed. (World Health Economic Forum, 2019).

Burnout is not unique to the nursing profession, but it is a clinical phenomenon felt across
all fields of nursing. Characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and low sense of
personal achievement, burnout is brought on by prolonged involvement in emotionally
demanding and stressful situations (Cañadas-De la Fuente et al., 2015; Wei, Ji, Li, & Zhang,
2017). Studies estimate that the majority (25–65%) of nurses experience burnout, but the
prevalence and gradual onset of burnout can vary greatly among nursing fields (Rushton,
Batcheller, Schroeder, & Donohue, 2015; Tawfik et al., 2017; Wei et al., 2017). The pressure to
perform at high levels from both patients and colleagues, exacerbated by poor sleep from shift
work, changes in technology, and lack of knowledge regarding emotional exhaustion, are all
suspected causes for elevated rates of burnout in modern health care settings (Cañadas-De la
Fuente et al., 2015; Tawfik et al., 2017; Wei et al., 2017). For nurses specifically, burnout has
been shown to have strong causative relationships with mental health disorders, substance abuse,
changes in workload, moral distress, and harassment from patients or colleagues (Cañadas-De la
Fuente et al., 2015; Henry, 2013; Rushton et al., 2015; Tawfik et al., 2017; Wei et al., 2017).

Exhausted nurses in the Philippines are struggling to care for patients as colleagues
contract COVID-19 or quit a profession that was dangerously understaffed even before the
pandemic. The country is enduring a record rise in infections, fueled by the Delta variant, with
the health department reporting a nursing shortfall of more than 100,000 – forcing those left to
work long hours for little pay on often precarious short-term contracts. The pandemic has
exacerbated a pre-existing lack of nurses, said Maristela Abenojar, president of Filipino Nurses
United – a situation she describes as “ironic” in one of the world’s biggest exporters of
healthcare workers.

In this light, the researcher decided to conduct the study to understand how nurses fights
burnout in times of pandemic. Several studies have done in different countries about burn out
and job satisfactions in nurses but not have been done here in the Philippines. This is beneficial
to nurses and patients because it affects the nurses well-being and safety and quality of health
care for the patients.

CITATIONS:

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