Stress and Burnout in Demanding Nursing Home Care : A literature review of the causes, prevention and coping strategies

Nursing job is generally related to intense pressure and high-level burnout because of its high demanding, challenging and stressful professional characteristic. Nursing staff in elderly home and long-term care facilities particularly experience higher level of physical job demands, more emotional exhaustion and lower level of job satisfaction than those in other units, thus bringing out higher burnout ratio among the nursing staffs. The main aim of this study was to reveal the causing factors of work strain and burnout among nursing staff in nursing home, and explore the positive interventions and coping strategies of burnout among nursing staffs. The study is a literature review of 11 articles. EBSCO and Science Direct were selected as the main databases for the research. Qualitative analysis was applied as the data analysis method. Results from this study indicated that occupational, organizational, socio-demographic factors are the main contributors to burnout in caregiving in nursing homes. Individual factors also have impacts on stress perceiving among nursing staff. Results from this study also indicated that the improvement and optimization from organizational level can effectively prevent and alleviate the burnout of caregiving in nursing homes. Optimism and redesign of nursing job, sufficient workplace support, participant management, flexible work schedule, and ample work-benefited facilities could be good resolution for nursing burnout. In recommendations, several coping strategies are provided for both health care institutions and for nursing staffs