The relationship between nurses’ clinical competencies and burnout in neonatal intensive care units: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

To assess the level of nurses' burnout, and clinical competence in nursing care at the intensive care unit and identify the relationship between them and the general information of the study sample. A cross-sectional study employing a convenience sampling approach was conducted to identify the relationship between burnout and clinical competencies in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) nurses. Data were collected through a questionnaire distributed to nurses between December 5, 2023 and February 10, 2024. A total of 128 NICU nurses participated in this research. The average age of nurses is 29.0 (SD=6.0) years, with 67.2% of them falling within the 20 to less than 30 years age group. The gender distribution shows that 81.3% of the nurses working in the NICU are female, while only 18.8% are male. 72.7% of NICU nurses had high clinical competence and 27.3% of them had moderate clinical competence. There is no significant relationship between clinical competencies and burnout among nurses. Furthermore, burnout does not significantly affect clinical competencies among NICU nurses, as evidenced by the lack of significant differences in the overall scores and sub-domains of burnout. The study recommended that there is a need to incorporate materials related to burnout syndrome and there is a need to offer incentives for nurses to enhance the clinical competencies of the intensive care unit.