Managing stress and burnout in your nursing role

Nursing is a highly rewarding, yet also stressful, career path. Thousands of job vacancies for nurses remain open, while more and more nurses are choosing to leave the profession for good. Additionally, there are too few people in the UK entering the profession and nurses are being sought from abroad to fill the UK vacancies. This lack of staff creates an unnecessary burden on the existing workforce, which is already working at minimal staffing levels. As the job often involves witnessing and alleviating the distress of others, with long shifts and variable shift patterns, it is inevitable that these circumstances will affect nurses.

Very few people can recognise when they are becoming mentally unwell. Nurses can be so busy trying to meet the demands of their own job that they do not notice when they are becoming unwell themselves.

This article discusses the signs and symptoms of stress, how to