{"id":2825,"date":"2024-08-04T13:00:48","date_gmt":"2024-08-04T12:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/ebn\/?p=2825"},"modified":"2024-08-02T14:47:24","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T13:47:24","slug":"why-are-nurses-at-particular-risk-of-chronic-exhaustion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/ebn\/2024\/08\/04\/why-are-nurses-at-particular-risk-of-chronic-exhaustion\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are Nurses at Particular Risk of Chronic Exhaustion?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This week’s blog comes from Alison McGrath, a nurse now working as an independent wellbeing coach, and explores whether nurses may be at risk of chronic exhaustion.<\/em><\/p>\n

Why do nurses smoke?\u00a0 Because the doctors have eaten all the chocolate.<\/p>\n

So went the joke when I was a student nurse in the early 1990s.\u00a0 We all laughed wryly at the unspoken reality underpinning the joke: a job that drove us to smoke or comfort-eat just to get through a shift. The NHS, as always, was in crisis. Headlines screamed that nurses were losing their vocation and quitting in huge numbers.\u00a0 I became one of those \u2018quitters\u2019 when I burned out in 1999.<\/p>\n

I went on to study for a PhD, exploring what experiences lay behind those judgemental headlines: Why did nurses want to leave?\u00a0 But, my academic career ended, in part, because I was told that nursing research is about patients, not nurses. I descended into years of escalating symptoms, eventually diagnosed as fibromyalgia, leaving me bed-bound for months and feeling as if my life had ended.\u00a0 My doctors told me that I should adapt to my exhaustion since recovery is not possible. Fortunately, as a nurse, I am not a good patient who accepts medical advice without question. I kept looking for answers, advice and support and I am now a fully recovered wellbeing coach, supporting recovery from chronic exhaustion. So many of my clients are nurses that I ask, \u2018Why are nurses at particular risk of developing chronic exhaustion \u2013 CFS, ME, fibromyalgia, long Covid?\u2019<\/p>\n

Why do nurses smoke?\u00a0 Why do they leave?\u00a0 Why are they exhausted? Aren\u2019t the answers obvious?\u00a0 Nursing is a tough profession, and we need to be strong, dedicated superheroes to do it.\u00a0 Really? I believe that the nursing workforce deserves more than this superficial response. From the few statistics recording nursing leavers and illness, it is impossible to say that nurses are at particular risk of chronic exhaustion.\u00a0 The lack of interest in compiling meaningful workforce statistics continues, and the choices made during the pandemic, to stop collating long Covid statistics, points to the politically explosive consequences of collecting this evidence.\u00a0 However, the patterns I see in my work cry out for attention: a notably high proportion of nurses, and a strong profile seen across clients, which resonates strongly with the nursing profile.<\/p>\n

The ME profile, developed by the online recovery programme that I work with, is one that nurses might like to reflect on, to consider how it applies to themselves, and whether they need to take action to avoid a descent into the chronic exhaustion and incapacity that I experienced.<\/p>\n

People who develop chronic exhaustive conditions are:<\/p>\n

Driven<\/strong><\/p>\n