DNP Final Report: Preventing Critical Care Nurse Burnout: An Evidence Based Approach to Raising Awareness

Burnout has affected nurses nationally and globally for decades. Burnout in nurses is characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of feelings of personal accomplishment. Consequences of burnout include physical and emotional suffering in nurses, poorer patient outcomes, and lost revenue and increased cost in healthcare organizations. Burnout is prevalent in many healthcare settings, but 81% of critical care nurses have reported severe symptoms of burnout, Because of the high risk of burnout in critical care nurses, raising awareness about burnout and its prevention in those nurses was imperative. The following PICOT question guided the search for evidence to support this quality improvement project: in critical care nurses (P), how does an educational program about burnout and its prevention (I), compared to no program (C), affect knowledge of burnout and its prevention (O), following the program (T)? Based on systematic review and appraisal of the evidence, an online approach to increasing knowledge was the teaching strategy recommended to use with nurses in the critical care setting. A 30-minute video with information about burnout and its consequences, management, and prevention was developed and made available online to critical care nurses in a central Texas hospital. In nurses who watched the video, knowledge of burnout and its consequences increased 13.94%, and knowledge of burnout prevention and management increased 31.55%. Nurses who watched the video reported that they were likely to use information from the video in the future and recommend the video to their peers and to new hires