Date of Award

6-2-2026

Document Type

Project Paper

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Department

Nursing

Program Affiliation

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

First Advisor

Dr. Afton Zediker

Abstract

Nursing burnout continues to be a critical concern in healthcare worldwide. Due to a lack of physical, emotional, and mental breaks, burnout has a high prevalence in the nursing profession. Burnout leads to reduced patient quality of care, higher staff workload, increased risk of errors, delay in care, and reduced job dissatisfaction. Nursing staff who do not take their scheduled breaks are more at risk for burnout because of the strong correlation between burnout and lack of rest (Stutting, 2023). For nurses to take their scheduled breaks is a common practice; however, nurses report continued stress as their break includes charting and a lack of mindfulness-based rest. For this project, burnout was defined as self-reported emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment, which was measured on a modified version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS)© scale. This quality improvement project aims to measure over a two-week period if implementing wellness activities – including a quiet room and essential oils – during scheduled break times, compared to routine breaks without structured wellness interventions, decreases burnout levels. With the goal of enhancing staff retention and improving patient care, this project attempted to identify interventions to be implemented in healthcare to improve nurse satisfaction and burnout rates.

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