Investigating the Relationship between Psychological Empowerment and Job Burnout with a Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence in Nurses of Private Hospitals in Shiraz

Abstract

Introduction: Employee burnout is one of the most important issues in today’s organizations because worn-out or depleted employees cannot effectively achieve organizational goals. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between psychological empowerment and job burnout with a mediating role of emotional intelligence in nurses of private hospitals in Shiraz.Methods: The present study used a cross-sectional analytical method on 256 nurses from private hospitals in Shiraz; according to the statistics of the Vice-Chancellor of Shiraz University, the total number of working nurses was around 750. To collect data, Maslach’s job burnout, Spreitzer’s psychological empowerment, and Bar-On’s emotional intelligence questionnaires were used, and the structural equation method was used to analyze the data.Results: The absolute value of the path coefficient explaining the relationship between psychological empowerment and job burnout was greater than 0.3 (0.545), and the t-statistic was higher than 1.96. Therefore, a negative relationship exists between psychological empowerment and job burnout, so with increased psychological empowerment, job burnout decreases. Also, Emotional intelligence increases the effect of psychological empowerment on job burnout. Thus, job burnout decreases with increased psychological empowerment and emotional intelligence.Conclusion: According to the results of this study, there are mutual effects between psychological empowerment, emotional intelligence, and job burnout, so it is expected that managers can promote psychological empowerment and reduce job burnout by strengthening emotional intelligence and improving the efficiency of nurses.

Keywords

• empowerment
• professional burnout
• emotional intelligence
• nurses