In a survey done in 2023 by Sagherian, Cho, and Steege, nurses do not like to take breaks due to worrying about their patients or being interrupted during their break. Before deciding whether or not to take a break, nurses will weigh their patient acuity, unfinished tasks, and staffing. This results in poor quality breaks and higher stress levels among staff (Sagherian, Cho, & Steege, 2023). Nurses continuously put others needs before their own and often feel obligated to be available to their patients at all times. Nurses are often overworked at the same time. According to the Workforce Institute (2017), the three top causes of nurse fatigue include excessive workloads, being unable to take lunch/dinner breaks, and not being able to take any breaks during the shift at all. Peters talks about compassion fatigue in the Nursing Forum, which has a direct relationship with risks associated with patient care. As fatigue increases, mistakes and safety issues increase as well (Peters, 2018). Another reason for this issue is poor interprofessional collaboration. Communication is an acquired skill and, when learned, it is a vital factor when collaborating with other healthcare …show more content…
This combined with infrequent meal breaks can create the perfect combination for compassion, fatigue or burnout. The possibility of being short staffed is also high, so that means extra patients with extra work. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2024), there are around 4.1 million registered nurses employed in the US. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024), the nursing profession is expected to grow by 6% in the next ten years, which means we need more than 2 million more nurses. This will all contribute to healthcare facilities being understaffed and the negative tolls it can have on staff. Compassion fatigue and burnout are both highly prevalent among nurses. According to the Nurse Journal (2022), some symptoms of compassion fatigue include impairment of judgment, loss of hope, negative spiritual identity and worldview, and overall decline in morale. This impacts 16% to 39% of nurses with the highest prevalence being in hospice, oncology, and emergency care (Murphy, Bassetti, & Geiser, 2022). Burnout symptoms are similar to symptoms of compassion fatigue, but differ in that it is caused by unmanaged, chronic workplace