The relationship between burnout and mental health among nurses

Abstract

Background: Burnout is one of the most important factors in reduced productivity in organizations and involves physical and mental signs, especially in the human service professions. The role of nurses in the healthcare system is vital and motivation to ensure health security is extremely important. We carried out this research to examine the relationship between burnout and mental health in the nursing staff of educational hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted among 200 nurses selected via probable multistage sampling. We used three instruments in this study: 1) demographic questionnaire 2) General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28) and 3) Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI).Results: On the whole, using the MBI subscale, we found low levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and high levels of reduced sense of personal accomplishment, both in frequency and intensity. The prevalence of symptomatic samples in the GHQ-28 was 43%, and two variables, burnout and poor mental health, were related (p<0.001). Burnout was to be related to gender, age and years of work. The correlation between poor mental health and years of work as well as hours of work in a week were significant. Conclusions: Our results suggest that there is a strong correlation between poor mental health and burnout. Furthermore, the prevalence of symptomatic samples detected in our study using the GHQ-28 was much higher than that reported in studies of the general population. The high prevalence of symptomatic samples and high prevalence of burnout in the dimension of self accomplishment, especially in younger nurses, combined with the strong correlation between poor mental health and burnout all show that care should be taken to improve the stressful conditions that nurses face.

Keywords

• burnout