IMPACTS OF BURNOUT ON THE QUALITY OF HEALTHCARE

Abstract

Professional exhaustion among healthcare workers constitutes a problem of growing relevance for the quality of patient care and for the sustainability of the Brazilian health system. This study analyzes the impacts of burnout syndrome and occupational stress on care standards, patient safety, and the organizational dynamics of health institutions, with emphasis on nursing professionals working in high-complexity care settings. The research adopts a qualitative approach, of a bibliographic and documentary nature, with a systematic survey of scientific literature published between 2018 and 2025 in the Scielo, PubMed, LILACS, and CAPES Periodicals Portal databases. The results indicate that burnout is directly associated with negative quality of care indicators, including increased adverse events, absenteeism, and staff turnover. The study concludes that the prevention of professional exhaustion requires intervention at the organizational, educational, and political levels, with the adoption of institutional worker health surveillance systems and evidence-based coping strategies. The findings reinforce that the well-being of healthcare teams is not a peripheral variable in the quality equation; it is a structural determinant of the care that reaches the patient. Institutions that treat worker health as a secondary concern produce conditions that systematically undermine the very standards they claim to uphold. Future research should prioritize field studies with validated instruments applied to representative samples of workers across different care contexts and professional categories, generating evidence with greater generalizability and policy applicability.