The Impact of Burnout on the Intention to Quit among Professional Nurses in the Free State Region — a National Crisis?

Abstract

Thousands of qualified nurses leave the South African health sector on an annual basis owing to various reasons, including burnout. Research showed that demanding work circumstances could influence employees to consider whether to leave an organisation or not. The aim of this study was to determine the level of burnout among professional nurses and to explore the potential impact of burnout on the intention to quiffchange. The sample consisted of 563 professional nurses representing 140 clinics located in five health districts in the Free State region. A total of 542 (97%) questionnaires were completed and returned. Participants in the study were predominantly black (83.8%), female (89.3%), day-shift working (89.8%) and full-time employed (99.8%). The measuring tools included a biographical questionnaire, Maslach's Burnout Inventory to determine the level of burnout of professional nurses, and an Intention to QuiffChange questionnaire. Analysis of variance was used to determine differences regarding burnout between different groups with varying degrees of intention to quitlchange. Respondents exhibited high levels of Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization and average levels of Personal Accomplishment. Respondents with the highest levels of Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization and the lowest levels of Personal Accomplishment displayed a higher degree of intention to quiffchange.

Factors influencing nurse‐assessed quality nursing care: A cross‐sectional study in hospitals

“…Nurses’ burnout is referred to as the syndrome of feelings including reduced personal accomplishment, depersonalization and emotional exhaustion that nurses experienced during their work (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, ). In a nursing context, the cause of burnout may result from inadequate staffing (Rafferty et al., ), experiencing higher stressors (Wang, Liu, & Wang, ), higher work load and long work shift (Pienaar & Bester, ), poor work environment (Van Bogaert et al., ), or lack of support (Khamisa et al., ). Additionally, when nurses experienced higher burnout, it has been found to be related to several negative outcomes, such as decrease in NAQNC (Poghosyan, Clarke, Finlayson, & Aiken, ) and increase in nurses’ intention to leave (Tan, Zou, Liu, & Hu, ).…”

Investigating the Relationship between Workload-Resources and Exhaustion of Nurses and Police Officers in Namibia

“…Employees would experience work engagement when exposed to high job demands complemented by high job resources. Pienaar and Bester (2011) added that thousands of qualified nurses quit from the South African health sector annually based on various reasons, including burnout. Their research showed that demanding work circumstances could potentially influence employees to reconsider being part of the organisation.…”

“…Organisational stress as a result of job demands and a clear lack of resources are the contributing factors to emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation (Pienaar & Bester, 2011). They emphasise that burnout is not primarily the result of the working environment but also the interaction between the individual's intra psychological aspects.…”

Comparing burnout in emergency nurses and medical nurses

“…It has been suggested that one of the biggest threats to the effective delivery of health care services within the public sector may be the nursing personnel who either quit or consider doing so [62] . The finding that 56% of the overall sample in this study indicated that they had considered leaving the nursing profession has implications for the future of nursing.…”