Most of us can relate to at some point to having a job where we felt stressed out and overworked. Researchers have examined the impact of sustained stress on individuals, finding that many start to eventually shut down in response to excessive amounts of pressure and stress. A new study examines how stress impacts nurses and may lead to an increase in nursing errors.

For years, nurses around the country and in states like Ohio have been calling for stricter regulations related to nurse-patient ratios. Nursing professionals are trained to always act in their patients' best interest and many feel patient safety is compromised when the nurse to patient ratio is not appropriately balanced. Nurses often report to feeling overworked and stressed out when they are required to care for too many patients. In addition to feeling overwhelmed, a bit contributor to nurse burnout and resulting nursing errors is poor management.

A new study found that in addition to staffing issues, lack of good leadership and management is also a major source of nurse burnout. Nurses who are overburdened by the number of patients for which they must care, report to feeling as though their concerns are not being addressed. They cite lack of support and inept management as a major source of stress that leads to burnout.

While hospitals admit to ongoing issues with trying to manage costs against providing good patient care, many seem blind to the bigger picture. Essentially nurse burnout is to blame for many medical errors that ultimately end up costing hospitals more money than if they would hire additional nursing staff.

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, "Penn study examines link between nurse burnout, care," Don Sapatkin, July 31, 2012