Professional burnout of geriatric nurses caring for elderly people with demetia

Introduction: Elderly people with dementia present complex needs and the challenges in their care may make the caring staff in long term caring settings vulnerable to the development of burnout because of the emotional and physical drainage they undergo. Purpose: of this study was to examine the factors that contribute towards the development of burnout of professional caregivers of elderly people with dementia so that effective programs for its prevention and management will be designed. Methodology: Review and research studies of the last decade were searched in international databases such as PubMed, Google scholar, CINAHL and Healink as well as in the references of the papers found and the papers were evaluated for their validity, they were thematically categorized and presented in this review.  Results: The International literature presents as the main factors related to burnout, the working environment of the nursing home, the personal characteristics of the nurses, the education and the behavioral problems of the demented patients. An important finding of this review is the fact that professional caregivers experience burnout due to mistaken beliefs about the patients as well as negative beliefs and emotional reactions towards dementia. High levels of stress contribute to diminished quality of care, missed care, increased frequency of inadequate safety and higher frequency of mistakes in the everyday practice of nursing homes.  Conclusions: It is important to find new directions for the improvement of the design of programs which aim at the reduction of professional burnout so as to include not only the organizational factors that contribute to the burnout but also focus to the cognitive and emotional reactions of the professionals towards the disease of their patients with regard to the specific and unique characteristics of nurses.