Understanding Role Stress as It Relates to Nurse Burnout A Concept Analysis Recent literature reports that a nursing shortage exists and is continually increasing. Data released by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2011) predicts that the shortage would increase to 260,000 by 2025. AACN (2011) also reported that 13% of newly registered nurses changed jobs and 37% were ready to change within a year. One study conducted reports that there is a correlation between higher nursing workloads and nurse burnout, retention rates, job dissatisfaction, and adverse patient outcomes (Vahey & Aiken, 2004). Of the nurses interviewed in the study, more than 40% said they suffered from burnout while 1 in 5 nurses typically understood this type of conceptual analysis to consist of an eight-step approach. The steps included in this method are defined as first selecting a concept, determining the purpose of the analysis, identifying uses of the concept, defining and determining attributes, identifying a model case, identification of related cases, identification of consequences and antecedents and finally the definition of empirical referents (McEwen & Willis, 2011). To complete this conceptual analysis, the concept was defined and a literature search was performed. For the purposes of the document, the concept was role stress and was defined as “any physical or psychological strain experienced by an individual, requiring greater abilities or resources than are available, to perform the role that revealed disparity compared to expectations” . role currently exercised, through an evaluation” (Riahi, 2011, pg. As stated previously, some of the effects of role stress and burnout are low retention rates, high staff turnover, decreased quality of care and decreased job satisfaction According to data, stress is responsible for 40% of turnover and half of absenteeism in the workplace. Empirical referent By definition, the empirical referent, are classes of real events that demonstrate the presence of the event or of the actual concept The tool designed to assess the occurrence is the Nurse Stress Scale, (NSS) which is a questionnaire that assesses situations that could be potentially stressful. These tools are designed only to detect symptoms already experienced related to stress they are not ideal for primary prevention needs (Riahi, 2011).