Abstract
To analyze, from an organizational perspective, the problem of nurse burnout in highly complex public hospitals in Chile. Multicenter, observational, cross-sectional study. According to established inclusion criteria, the universe of hospitals and nurses was the object of work. Data collection was carried out through a nurse survey. Work environment was measured with the instrument Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index, staffing through the nurses' report on patient load, and burnout with the Maslach Burnout Inventory emotional exhaustion subscale. Thirty-four hospitals (92%) and 1,395 nurses (75.3%) participated in the study. The prevalence of burnout was 34.7%, being higher in Santiago than in other regions of the country (p = 0.001). The logistic regression analyses showed a significant association between work environment and burnout (OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.41-0.79, p = 0.001). No association was established between staffing, skill mix and burnout. A high percentage of nurses in Chile has burnout, which is significantly associated with the quality of the environment. The implementation of organizational strategies to improve work environments could reduce burnout and improve the quality of care.
Highlights
Research on burnout dates back to the 70s, with its connection with care-providing professions[1,2] being recognized since to date, there are no studies, from a national perspective, evaluating how this syndrome affects nurses who work in the public network of hospitals in Chile
Work environment was measured with the instrument Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index, staffing through the nurses’ report on patient load, and burnout with the Maslach Burnout Inventory emotional exhaustion subscale
The present study aims to analyze, from an organizational perspective, the problem of burnout in nurses in highly complex public hospitals in Chile and to evaluate the association between burnout and the work environment, staffing and skill mix
Summary
Research on burnout dates back to the 70s, with its connection with care-providing professions[1,2] being recognized since to date, there are no studies, from a national perspective, evaluating how this syndrome affects nurses who work in the public network of hospitals in Chile. Chilean public hospitals have historically faced inadequate management and a shortage of resources[3], which negatively influence aspects of the nurses’ work environment that predispose them to burnout. Among these aspects are the insufficiency of personnel to face the work demands, the excessive assignment of patients per nurse, and the lack of time to carry out the nursing-specific tasks[4]. It is likely that these territorial differences d etermine differences in the burnout among nurses working in Santiago or in the rest of the country (hereinafter, Santiago and Regions will be the places referred to)
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