Prevalence of burnout syndrome in clinical nurses at a hospital of excellence

Abstract

BackgroundBurnout syndrome can be defined as long-term work stress resulting from the interaction between constant emotional pressure associated with intense interpersonal involvement for long periods of time and personal characteristics. We investigated the prevalence/propensity of Burnout syndrome in clinical nurses, and the factors related to Burnout syndrome-associated such as socio-demographic characteristics, work load, social and family life, leisure activities, extra work activities, physical activities, and work-related health problems.MethodWe conducted a cross-sectional, quantitative, prospective epidemiological study with 188 surgical clinic nurses. We used the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), which is a socio-demographic questionnaire and the most widely used instrument to assess Burnout syndrome (three basic dimensions: emotional exhaustion, despersonalization and professional underachievement). The socio-demographic profile questionnaire wascomposed of questions regarding identification, training, time at work, work characteristics and personal circumstances.ResultsThe prevalence of Burnout syndrome was higher (10.1%) and 55, 4% of subjects had a propensity to develop this syndrome. The analysis of the socio-demographic profile of the nurse sample studied showed that most nurses were childless married women, over 35 years of age, working the day shift for 36 hours weekly on average, with 2-6 years of post-graduation experience, and without extra employments. Factors such as marital status, work load, emotion and work related stress aggravated the onset of the syndrome.ConclusionThe prevalence and propensity of Burnout syndrome were high. Some factors identified can be useful for the adoption of preventive actions in order to decrease the prevalence of the clinical nurses Burnout syndrome.

Preditores da síndrome de burnout em enfermeiros de unidade de terapia intensiva

“…The re-sults showed that the prevalence of nurses with burnout was 14.3%, similar to the results found in literature (8,12) . The participants showed high levels of emotional exhaustion (47.2%) and depersonalisation (34.1%), as well as a low level of personal accomplishment (34.1%).…”

“…Most of the nurses with burnout attended less than 10 patients a day, but there was no significant association with this variable (1) . Burnout syndrome affects workers who deal with people and need solid interpersonal skills to perform their activities (7)(8) ; however, these workers are overworked and do not have sufficient resources to effectively cope with the work demands, which can lead them to lose faith in their work.…”

“…Burnout and stress are the most widely addressed subjects by researchers in the area of mental health for workers (1) . It has been reported that burnout is more common among nurses than other health workers (7) because of the stressful situations nurses experience at work and their direct contact with critically ill patients with different prognoses and varying degrees of suffering (8) . The term burnout is used to describe physical or mental exhaustion caused by stress.…”

Burnout and depressive symptoms in intensive care nurses: relationship analysis

“…Regarding the work shift, the prevalence of burnout syndrome is generally considered to be higher in nurses working at night; in the present study however, a contradictory finding showed an equal percentage between the morning and night shifts (13,15) . The literature points out that the professionals most affected by burnout are those with over 30 hours of service per week, since professionals with a shorter workload often choose to have a second job because they see this as a possibility of improving their income (2) .…”

“…Regarding the profile of nurses with burnout, there is a predominance of young individuals (14) , aged between 31 to 35 years, female, single and childless (15) . A contradictory result was found for the variable age in the literature (16) , but most studies report that burnout has a higher prevalence among younger nurses, since these are considered inexperienced and more likely to suffer anxiety when faced with eventual intercurrences during their shift (17)(18) .…”