Levels of Burnout Syndrome in Croatian Critical Care Nurses: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Burnout syndrome occurs in people who work in jobs which involve frequent and intense contact with people, especially healthcare workers. High dependency departments such as critical care units are very stressful environments, and this can lead to a greater incidence of burnout, especially of emotional exhaustion and poor personal accomplishment. Nurses are the largest group of healthcare workers, and so it is reasonable to expect they would have a high prevalence of burnout.Subjects and methods: The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of burnout in critical care nurses in Croatia and explore its association with demographic features. A cross-sectional study of 620 nurses was conducted in several university hospitals, using convenience sampling. The Maslach Burnout Inventory was administered, together with questions about the sociodemographic and work characteristics of the participants (age, gender, length of work in ICU, education, type of ICU).Results: The majority of the sample were female nursing staff (87.7%), aged 26-35 (38.9%). The results showed that approximately every fifth nurse (22.1%) expressed a high emotional exhaustion (EE), with lesser burden of a high depersonalisation (D) in 7.9%, yet every third nurse (34.5%) scored low on PA. Male nurses reported more depersonalisation (p=0.045), yet neither EE nor the PA dimensions differed by gender.Conclusion: The results of this study concerning burnout are comparable to those of studies of other professions, but the results vary with regard to the sample and the working conditions of the countries.

Prevalence of burnout risk and factors associated with burnout risk among ICU nurses during the COVID-19 outbreak in French speaking Belgium

“…Regarding other risk factors, men were more at risk of DP. This finding has already been observed in other reports in the literature (Chuang et al, 2016;Friganović and Selič, 2020;Merlani et al, 2011). In contrast, there was no association between the level of training and the different dimensions of burnout.…”

“…Regarding the prevalence of risk of burnout (68%), this was higher in this study than in previous studies carried out in Belgium in a general nursing population that reported a prevalence ranging from 17% to 38% (Vandenbroeck et al, 2017;Van den Heede et al, 2019). Compared with other studies carried out only among ICU nurses, we also observed a higher prevalence in our study in comparison to others that reported prevalence rates ranging from 3% to 27% (Friganović and Selič, 2020;Vermeir et al, 2018;Woo et al, 2020). Overall, the other studies were not carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic, the context of the pandemic may, therefore, explain the higher prevalence, especially since Belgium has been strongly affected by the pandemic.…”

“…Regarding the three dimensions of burnout, the risk of EE (38%), DP (29%), and reduced PA (31%) was high in this study compared to other studies (Chuang et al, 2016;Friganović and Selič, 2020;Guntupalli et al, 2014;Vermeir et al, 2018). Maslach et al highlighted three dimensions to the burnout syndrome: emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and personal accomplishment (Maslach et al 1986).…”

Prevalence of burnout among health care workers in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic: a cross-sectional study

“…Research conducted among physicians in Croatia on a national level before the pandemic showed that 63% of all physicians experienced burnout, and 16% of physicians experienced all three forms of burnout ( 38 ). The research on the levels of burnout syndrome in critical care nurses in Croatia showed that 22.1% of nurses expressed a high level of emotional exhaustion, with a lower level of depersonalization (7.9%), and 34.5% had a low level of personal accomplishment ( 39 ).…”

Validation of the Professional Quality of Life Scale among Slovenian and Croatian nurses

“…Furthermore, research shows that Slovenian nurses experience a high level of stress which results in inefficiency, staff turnover, and sick leave, subsequently decreasing the quality of care and their work satisfaction (Dobnik et al, 2018). Additionally, research on Croatian critical care nurses showed a high level of emotional Corresponding author: Leona Cilar, University of Maribor,Faculty of Health Sciences,Nursing Department,Žitna ulica 15,Maribor,Slovenia;email: leona.cilar1@um.si exhaustion and depersonalization (Friganović & Selič, 2020). Quality nursing care gives nurses a feeling of satisfaction with their job, which is often closely related to professional quality of life (Wulandari et al, 2018).…”