Job Stress and Burnout Syndrome among Critical Care Healthcare Workers

Abstract

a b s t r a c tBackground: Among healthcare professions, critical care healthcare workers (HCWs) have one of the most stressful jobs. This study was conducted to determine the relationship between job stress and burnout syndrome (BOS) among nurses and healthcare technicians at the surgical emergency department and intensive care unit of Critical Care department at the Alexandria University Hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional approach was conducted from October 2014 to March 2015. Eighty-two nurses and healthcare technicians participated in the research (response rate = 80.39%). Data was collected by an interview questionnaire using selected subscales of NIOSH Generic job stress Questionnaire and Maslach Burnout Inventory of Health and human service Questionnaire. The relationship between BOS and job stress was examined using bivariate and multivariate analyses. Results: Although majority of participants reported variation of workload (84.15%), quantitative overload (76.8%), responsibility for peoples' life (69.5%) and lack of perceived control (63.41%), yet, 85.4% were satisfied with their job. Moreover, high levels of emotional exhaustion was reported by the majority of participants (80%), while less than one third reported either high levels of depersonalization or low levels of personal accomplishment domains of BOS. In multiple regression analysis, skill underutilization, variation in workload, and intragroup conflicts were negatively associated with BOS domains. While, job satisfaction and responsibility for peoples' life were positively associated with personal accomplishment domain of BOS. Conclusion: Critical care HCWs had high BOS. The study concluded that reducing intragroup conflict, improving skills utilization, and raising job satisfaction are crucial to reduce BOS among critical care HCWs. More attention and psychological support is recommended to critical care HCWs. Ó 2017 Alexandria University Faculty of Medicine. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Occupational stress, quality of working life and turnover intention amongst nurses

“…In this study, nurses who experienced high duty and interpersonal stress were more likely to leave their job. This finding reflects that of Rahmani et al (), whereas in an Egyptian study of CCU nurses, quantitative overload, variation of workload, lack of perceived control and responsibility for peoples' lives were the greatest predictors of job stress, with that stress being associated with high levels of emotional exhaustion (Elshaer et al , ). Low wages and salaries were found to result in a low level of QWL in this study, whereas performance obstacles were found to potentially reduce the QWL of ICU nurses in Wisconsin (Gurses et al , ).…”

“…CCU nurses have been selected for this study because, while there is a general shortage of nurses, with current numbers insufficient to meet existing and projected needs (Sawatzky et al , ), the demand for critical care services is expected to grow rapidly in response to an increasing elderly population with an associated increase in chronic illnesses and because of advances in higher‐risk medical therapies (Adhikari et al , ). CCU nurses are also recognized to have a more stressful job than nurses working on general wards (Elshaer et al , ).…”

Perceived effects of burnout on patients and its management among nurses in the Intensive Care Unit and Emergency Department of a Rwandan University Teaching Hospital

“…The high burnout is similar to other studies conducted in Africa in similar settings. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] These participants attributed burnout to overburden with responsibilities of high acuity patients and unpredictable work environment while faced with staff shortage and irregular hours. Moreover, they identified a lack of motivation as in training and recognition of their extra effort.…”

“…Moreover, they identified a lack of motivation as in training and recognition of their extra effort. Various other studies have found a high workload as a predictor of burnout, [1,[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] or job demands. [24] In contrast, however, a study conducted in an ICU in Portugal found no correlation between burnout and workload.…”

“…[14] Staff was more likely to suffer from both Emotional exhaustion and Depersonalization if they had not received specialised job training. [14] In Egypt, improved training and skills utilisation increased job satisfaction, [20] and may have increased the Personal accomplishment (the third component of burnout) through communication with peers and management.…”