Prevalence of burnout syndrome among nurses in general hospitals in provincial East Java: Cross-sectional study

Abstract

Burnout is a psychological response that is emotional and related to chronic stress experienced by workers in service organizations who interact directly with service users. To identify the prevalence of burnout syndrome among nurses in general hospitals and establish associations with socio-demographic factors. The research design used was descriptive exploratory with a cross-sectional approach using a sample of 485 nurses in medical and surgical units in three general hospitals in the East Java province. Data was collected in 2018 using a self-reported questionnaire from the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Service Survey (MBI-HSS) that was applied to identify burnout syndrome and a socio-demographic questionnaire was used to evaluate respondents' demographics. A high level of burnout was recognized in 34.8% of the respondents in the area of emotional exhaustion (EE), 24.3% in the area of depersonalization (DP) and 24.5% in the area of reduced personal accomplishment (RPA). Correlation analysis showed that marital status and work experience were related to EE (p<0.05); employment status and age were linked to DP (p<0.05); and marital status was related to RPA (p<0.05). The prevalence of nurses who experience burnout syndromes is high. Therefore, the hospital management needs to identify sociodemographic characteristics which will improve the working environment, recruitment and retention systems and the provision of effective health services.