Burnout symptoms in forensic psychiatric nurses and their associations with personality, emotional intelligence and client aggression: A cross‐sectional study

Abstract

Introduction Aggressive behaviour of forensic clients is associated with burnout symptoms in nursing staff. The role of staff characteristics as moderators is unclear. Aim We explored the association between type and severity of aggressive behaviour as experienced by nursing staff and staff's burnout symptoms. In addition, the moderating roles of personality characteristics and emotional intelligence (EI) were studied. Moreover, the usefulness of ambulatory skin conductance assessments in detecting arousal related to burnout symptoms was studied. Method A total of 114 forensic nursing staff members filled out questionnaires and wore an ambulatory device. Results Experiencing physical aggression was positively associated with staff's burnout symptoms. Stress management skills, a subscale of EI, but not personality, moderated this relationship. Skin conductance was not associated with burnout symptoms. Remarkably, the association between aggression and burnout symptoms was highest for staff reporting a higher number of stress management skills. Discussion Longitudinal research is necessary to establish causality between client aggression and staff burnout symptoms. In addition, further research is necessary on the validity of the aggression measure used in the current study. Implication for practice Nursing staff who experience physical aggression frequently should receive social support for this, and staff who report high stress management skills should be monitored more carefully after having been confronted with aggression.

Workplace Violence and Its Effects on Burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress among Mental Healthcare Nurses in Japan

“…In the multivariate regression analysis, only burnout was associated with WPV; secondary traumatic stress was not. The association we observed between WPV and burnout is in agreement with previous studies [25,48,49]. A cross-sectional study conducted in the Netherlands revealed that physical aggression was positively associated with the staff's burnout symptoms [48], and this association remained in the same study sample over a two-year longitudinal study [49].…”

“…The association we observed between WPV and burnout is in agreement with previous studies [25,48,49]. A cross-sectional study conducted in the Netherlands revealed that physical aggression was positively associated with the staff's burnout symptoms [48], and this association remained in the same study sample over a two-year longitudinal study [49]. The advantage of the present investigation is that we examined burnout and secondary traumatic stress using the ProQOL scale, which can avoid overlapping of symptoms.…”

Prevalence of burnout in mental health nurses and related factors: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…Finally, De Looff et al () showed that burnout syndrome is aggravated by stress and aggression in the workplace. On the contrary, high emotional intelligence is considered a protective factor.…”

“…Finally, the findings of low–moderate levels of burnout may be due to the fact that nurses sometimes must deal with hostile situations (Gascon et al 2013) which can produce high levels of stress (Gómez‐Urquiza et al ) if they are not skilled in managing hostile situations and how to cope with it (Duan‐Porter et al ). This problem might be overcome by helping them develop capabilities such as emotional intelligence (De Looff et al ). Furthermore, nurses who have more experience and seniority in the workplace are usually confronted more directly with work‐related restrictions (Roomaney et al ), monotony (Cañadas‐De la Fuente et al ; Gómez‐Urquiza et al ), and work overload (Cañadas‐De la Fuente et al ).…”

Factors influencing work engagement among psychiatric nurses in Japan

“…Previous studies have reported that emotional intelligence was negatively correlated with burnout among psychiatric nurses (De Looff, Nijman, Didden, & Embregts, 2018). Additionally, based on a modification of the conceptualization of Salovey and Mayer (1990), emotional intelligence has been conceptualized as composed of four distinct dimensions (Wong & Law, 2002), that is, self-emotion appraisal (SEA; ability to understand one's emotions), other-emotion appraisal (OEA; empathic ability to perceive and understand other people's emotions), regulation of emotion (ROE; ability to regulate one's emotions) and use of emotion (UOE; ability to motivate oneself towards a goal).…”