STUDENT NAME & ID
NURS6623 ASSESSMENT 2
Nurse Burnout and Staffing Shortages
Student Name Here
University Name Here
March 16, 2026
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STUDENT NAME & ID
NURS6623 ASSESSMENT 2
Problem Statement:
Nursing plays an important role in healthcare and is responsible for frontline care
delivery. To increase the quality of healthcare, there is a need to understand the challenges of
nurses. The nursing profession faces a growing shortage worldwide, which causes nurses'
burnout. According to Alansari et al currently 28 million nurses are employed, but demand is
36 million by 2030, and current nurses face burnout, making it difficult for them to serve as
nurses (Alansari et al., 2025). Globally, more than 11% nurses faced severe burnout
problems, which cause exhaustion, mental issues, and a lack of focus on work, which also
affects organisational productivity, patient care and effectiveness of (Getie et al., 2025). This
is a major challenge in healthcare organisations, which need effective leadership for
implementing change to solve the staff shortage issue and reduce the rate of burnout. In this
situation, my role is a nurse leader who is responsible for a project whose aim is to implement
a change that reduces the nurses' burnout and solves staff shortage issues in an acute
healthcare unit. According to Ystaas et al. (2023), adopting a transformational leadership
increases the positive work environment, which reduces emotional exhaustion and burnout,
leading to staff retention, which enhances the quality of healthcare. As a nurse leader, I am
responsible for understanding the problems of on-duty nurses and providing them with
effective resources as well as coordinating with them on patient care, supporting staff
performance and providing safe and healthy work environments.
Approach:
The transformational leadership style suited this situation because it motivates and
empowers the team to support the change and help in creating positive work environment
(Ystaas et al., 2023). According to Specchia et al. (2021), the nursing work environment is
the most important factor for increasing engagement and satisfaction of nurses, and so for
that need those leaders who have a transformational leadership style who promote teamwork,
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STUDENT NAME & ID
NURS6623 ASSESSMENT 2
encourage them for good performance and motivate them to accept changes that help in
reducing burnout and increasing the quality of healthcare. For this situation, a leadership style
is needed that influences nurses, motivates them, provides creative solutions and considers
the needs of each nurse. According to Ystaas et al. (2023), transformational leadership has
four behaviours. Firstly, idealised influence, these types of leaders are role models for team
members and influence them to follow their actions. The second behaviour is inspirational
motivation; leaders create a vision and motivate nurses towards common goals, which
reduces burnout. Transformational leaders have intellectual stimulation behaviours, which
provide creative solutions, and the fourth behaviour is individualised consideration, which
means that they understand and communicate with each nurse to provide support according to
their needs (Ystaas et al., 2023).
Goal:
In six months, reduce 20% of nurses' burnout in the acute care unit while also
managing staff shortages and workload by adjusting the schedule of nurses.
Tool:
As a unit leader, I will use root cause analysis, which helps to critically find the
causes behind staff shortages and nurses' burnout. According to Liepelt et al. (2023), root
cause analysis is a commonly used tool in healthcare to identify the causes of problems rather
than only focusing on the effects of problems. As a leader, I focus on nurse burnout caused by
staff shortages, but with the help of root analysis, I identify the reasons behind staff shortages
and then, along with staff shortages, which factors contribute to nurse burnout. According to
Getie et al. (2025), nurse burnout occurs due to multiple factors such as staff shortages, less
organisational support, long shifts, heavy workloads, and lack of communication among
nurses and management. This tool is chosen because it supports evidence-based decision-
making and not only blames individuals but also helps to collect data from staff feedback,
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NURS6623 ASSESSMENT 2
incident reports and workload data (Peerallay et al., 2017). The main reason for the use of
RCA is to reduce the chance of the occurrence of burnout events again, but evidence
highlights that I need an effective understanding of the lack of proper implementation, which
increases the chance of recurrence.
Factor:
One important organisational factor is the ethical working environment in healthcare
units. According to Boudreau and Rhéaume (2023), an ethical work environment refers to the
workplace where fair policies, ethical leadership practices and organisational values support
fairness and respect for staff. During healthcare practices, nurses now face several situations
where they get unfair and disrespectful behaviours that cause mental distress between them
and lead to reduced job satisfaction, which becomes a cause of burnout (Javidpour et al.,
2025). In situations of staff shortages, nurses are often required to manage a high workload
and work overtime, which makes it difficult for nurses to balance home and life (Alansari et
al., 2025). This factor is important in this situation because the working environment is
managed by organisational decisions which are responsible for work management, schedules
and resource distribution. When leadership only focus on cost and productivity without
considering an ethical working environment, then it increases job dissatisfaction, affecting the
quality of healthcare. In a healthy working environment, leaders also allow the nurses/staff in
decision-making, which increases trust in leadership. According to Boudreau and Rhéaume
(2024), effective leadership and fair policies which promote a healthy working environment
help to reduce turnover rate and burnout.
Stakeholder:
Table 1: Stakeholder Identification Table
Stakeholder Impact of the Issue Role in Change Process
Staff Nurses High workload, burnout, job Participate in change
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NURS6623 ASSESSMENT 2
dissatisfaction implementation and provide
feedback
Nurse Manager/Unit Responsible for staffing Lead and monitor change
Leader coordination and staff implementation
wellbeing
Hospital Administration Financial and workforce Provide resources and
planning responsibility approve staffing strategies
Patients and Families Affected by quality and Provide satisfaction feedback
safety of care and care outcomes
Human Resource Recruitment and retention Support hiring and workforce
Department responsibilities policies
Multidisciplinary Team Workflow and Collaborate to improve team
(Doctors, Allied Health) communication were efficiency
affected
Staff nurses are one important stakeholder in this situation because they are directly
affected by staff shortages and burnout, and also play a central role in the implementation of
change policy. Their readiness for change is often influenced by their workload pressure, lack
of support from the organisation and leadership and workload pressure. According to Li et al.
(2024), nurse turnover is strongly associated with poor quality of healthcare for patients,
patient dissatisfaction, and poor safety of patients, which means that lack of nurses' well-
being directly impacts healthcare outcomes. From evidence, it is understandable that in this
situation, due to staff shortage, staff nurses face a high workload and spend overtime, which
increases work pressure on them, causing emotional exhaustion. These symptoms cause job
dissatisfaction among them and increase the chance of burnout. So, an effective strategy in
this case is the implementation of shared decision-making through transformational
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NURS6623 ASSESSMENT 2
leadership. Evidence indicates that involving nurses in organisational decisions increases
their job satisfaction, trust in leadership and acceptance of change (Boudreau & Rhéaume,
2024). When in this situation, staff nurses can discuss their psychological issues that are
caused by workload and imbalance, which helps leadership to assist according to feedback.
Evaluation:
In this situation, the baseline will be the burnout score before implementation of the
change, and the outcome measure will be the burnout score after 6 months of implementation
of the change. The burnout score will be measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)
survey. The measure of burnout score before and after the change will be measured because
they help in evaluating the effectiveness of the change. MBI measures three main symptoms
associated with burnout, which include “syndrome of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy”
(Bianchi et al., 2024). Comparing pre- and post-intervention scores will provide meaningful
evidence about the effectiveness of leadership style and staff strategies.
The process measure will monitor the nurse-to-patient ratio and working hours. This
measure helps to evaluate whether the management successfully implements staff strategies
or fails to implement. Evidence indicates that a low nurse-to-patient ratio increases workload
and working hours, which lead to nurse burnout, so accurately addressing these factors will
increase job satisfaction and quality of care (Getie et al. 2025). Measuring staff ratio
alongside burnout score will provide meaningful evidence to analyse the improvement due to
staff strategies. In case of low improvement, these measures will provide meaningful
evidence about gaps and improvement areas.
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NURS6623 ASSESSMENT 2
References
Alansari, A. N., Omri, A. E., & Singh, K. (2025). Staff shortages linked to burnout,
depression, and anxiety among outpatient nurses: a cross-sectional analysis at Hamad
General Hospital, Qatar. BMC Nursing, 24(1). [Link]
03758-7
Bianchi, R., Swingler, G., & Schonfeld, I. S. (2024). The Maslach Burnout Inventory is not a
measure of burnout. Work, 79(3), 1–3. [Link]
Boudreau, C., & Rhéaume, A. (2024). Impact of the work environment on nurse outcomes: A
mediation analysis. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 46(3), 210–218.
[Link]
Getie, A., Ayenew, T., Amlak, B. T., Gedfew, M., Edmealem, A., & Kebede, W. M. (2025).
Global prevalence and contributing factors of nurse burnout: an umbrella review of
systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Nursing, 24(1).
[Link]
Javidpour, M., Ramezani-Badr, F., Hamidi, L., & Amini, K. (2025). Balancing ethics, burnout
and job satisfaction: The challenges facing nurses in teaching hospitals. BMC Health
Services Research, 25, Article 289. [Link]
Li, L. Z., Yang, P., Singer, S. J., Pfeffer, J., Mathur, M. B., & Shanafelt, T. (2024). Nurse
burnout and patient safety, satisfaction, and quality of care: A systematic review and
meta-analysis. JAMA Network Open, 7(11).
[Link]
Liepelt, S., Sundal, H., & Kirchhoff, R. (2023). Team experiences of the root cause analysis
process after a sentinel event: a qualitative case study. BMC Health Services
Research, 23(1). [Link]
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STUDENT NAME & ID
NURS6623 ASSESSMENT 2
Peerally, M. F., Carr, S., Waring, J., & Dixon-Woods, M. (2017). The problem with root cause
analysis. BMJ Quality & Safety, 26(5), 417–422. [Link]
005511
Specchia, M. L., Cozzolino, M. R., Carini, E., Di Pilla, A., Galletti, C., Ricciardi, W., &
Damiani, G. (2021). Leadership Styles and Nurses’ Job satisfaction. Results of a
Systematic Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public
Health, 18(4), 1552. [Link]
Ystaas, L. M. K., Nikitara, M., Ghobrial, S., Latzourakis, E., Polychronis, G., &
Constantinou, C. S. (2023). The impact of transformational leadership in the nursing
work environment and patients’ outcomes: A systematic review. Nursing Reports,
13(3), 1271–1290. [Link]
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