April 4-6, 2024 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Innovations in Health Communication
Innovations in Health Communication
Abstract: Burning Brightly or Burning Out: How Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Health Care Workers Communicatively Construct Resilience
Health care worker burnout has been a major concern for many years and has been well documented in both academic and practitioner literature (Felton, 1998; Rehder et al., 2021; Wright et al., 2010). Since the COVID-19 pandemic, health care workers are experiencing even greater challenges to their workplace wellness and increased levels of burnout—especially in intensive care units (Green et al., 2023; Guttormson et al., 2022; Sasangohar et al., 2020). Higher levels of burnout are problematic because decreased engagement and higher burnout and stress can lead to insomnia, loss of engagement or enthusiasm for work, early resignation or quitting, increased suicide, depression, insomnia, and death by overwork (Khamisa et al., 2018; Johnson et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2021).
Front line health care worker burnout post-COVID has continued to remain high with workers experiencing extended work hours, sleep deprivation, and increased work pressure (Zhang et al., 2021). As a response, front line health care workers have found ways to communicatively cope with burnout through resilience. Resilience has been conceptualized as a process that is communicatively constructed in five ways: (a) crafting normalcy, (b) affirming identity anchors, (c) maintaining/using communication networks, (d) constructing alternative logics, and (e) foregrounding productive action while backgrounding negative emotions (Wilson et al., 2021).
The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how nurses and respiratory therapists who work in an intensive care unit (ICU) experience burnout and resilience. A total of thirteen interviews with critical care nurses and respiratory therapists located within one high-volume southern ICU unit were conducted. Interview insights were also supported with an additional ten hours of job shadowing in the ICU. Data was analyzed using an iterative analysis—moving back and forth between analyzing qualitative data and reading relevant literature on burnout and the communication theory of resilience (Tracy, 2020). Findings revealed that participants experienced burnout due to work overload, time constraints, conflicts with family, role ambiguity, and perceptions of lack of support. On the other hand, resilience manifested through communication individually and collectively through a variety of practices including dark humor, team cohesion, venting, and using alternative logics to solve complex problems. Theoretical implications are offered regarding the extension of burnout theory to include more communicative considerations and the importance of emotional expression and suppression at work in relation to resilience. Practical implication of this study to foster resilience include recommendations and guidelines for expanding programs expressly dedicated to team cohesion, which can affirm and strengthen identity anchors and communication networks.
Front line health care worker burnout post-COVID has continued to remain high with workers experiencing extended work hours, sleep deprivation, and increased work pressure (Zhang et al., 2021). As a response, front line health care workers have found ways to communicatively cope with burnout through resilience. Resilience has been conceptualized as a process that is communicatively constructed in five ways: (a) crafting normalcy, (b) affirming identity anchors, (c) maintaining/using communication networks, (d) constructing alternative logics, and (e) foregrounding productive action while backgrounding negative emotions (Wilson et al., 2021).
The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate how nurses and respiratory therapists who work in an intensive care unit (ICU) experience burnout and resilience. A total of thirteen interviews with critical care nurses and respiratory therapists located within one high-volume southern ICU unit were conducted. Interview insights were also supported with an additional ten hours of job shadowing in the ICU. Data was analyzed using an iterative analysis—moving back and forth between analyzing qualitative data and reading relevant literature on burnout and the communication theory of resilience (Tracy, 2020). Findings revealed that participants experienced burnout due to work overload, time constraints, conflicts with family, role ambiguity, and perceptions of lack of support. On the other hand, resilience manifested through communication individually and collectively through a variety of practices including dark humor, team cohesion, venting, and using alternative logics to solve complex problems. Theoretical implications are offered regarding the extension of burnout theory to include more communicative considerations and the importance of emotional expression and suppression at work in relation to resilience. Practical implication of this study to foster resilience include recommendations and guidelines for expanding programs expressly dedicated to team cohesion, which can affirm and strengthen identity anchors and communication networks.