Feelings Of Emotional Exhaustion Research Articles

EXAMINING THE CONCEPT OF OCCUPATIONAL BURNOUT AND THE LEVEL OF OCCUPATIONAL BURNOUT IN TERMS OF DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES

Purpose- The aim of the study is to examine how the level of occupational burnout is affected by demographic variables. Methodology- Occupational burnout level was examined in terms of demographic variables. Demographic variables; gender, marital status, age, education level of the person, monthly income level, working time in the current institution (seniority period) and total seniority in business life. The Maslach Burnout scale was used to measure the dimensions of professional burnout, and the three dimensions of the scale, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and the feeling of decrease in personal achievement, and demographic variables were examined. Questionnaire method was used. Findings- According to the results of the research, demographic variables have an impact on burnout in general. A high level of relationship was found between income level, gender, age, seniority of the person and professional burnout. A moderate relationship was found between marital and educational status and professional burnout. Among the dimensions of occupational burnout, the dimension most affected by demographic variables is the dimension of emotional exhaustion. The highest effect is between income level and gender demographic variables and emotional exhaustion dimension. Conclusion- As a result, due to the fact that demographic variables have an effect on occupational burnout, the result of the study emerges that businesses should consider the demographic variables while considering the occupational burnout status of the employees. The high effect of income level and gender variables on occupational burnout is important. Considering these differences and considering the demographic variables in general, reducing the level of professional burnout, which has a high impact on the performance of the employees, has a high importance in terms of improving the performance of the enterprises and studies should be carried out in this direction. Keywords: Occupational burnout, demographic variables, feelings of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and decreased personal achievement. JEL Codes: O15, M11, M12

Has the fever left a burn?A study of the impact of COVID-19 remote working arrangements on public accountants’ burnout

Purpose This study aims to investigate the effects of COVID-19 working arrangements on role stress, burnout and turnover intentions in public accounting professionals. Additionally, while all professionals have had to adapt to this rapid change in working environment, this paper explores whether the impact of this transition differs depending on demographic factors, namely, rank, gender, firm size and service line. Design/methodology/approach The authors survey 159 public accountants working in audit and tax on their perceptions of role stress, burnout and turnover intentions before COVID-19 and since. The survey used validated instruments from prior literature to capture these measures. Findings Results show that role stress, burnout and turnover intentions increased significantly since remote work began. Specifically, the rank of accountants significantly affects this association, with staff experiencing the most significant increases in role stress and burnout and seniors reporting significantly higher intentions to leave their current firms. Females experience a significant increase in feelings of emotional exhaustion and turnover intention, while males experience a significant increase in feelings of depersonalization and role overload. Finally, there is a positive association between firm size and burnout, with employees from national/midsize firms experiencing the largest increase in feelings of emotional exhaustion, reduced personal accomplishment and depersonalization. Originality/value Given that all prior research on role stressors, burnout tendencies and turnover intentions in the context of public accounting was conducted in the pre-COVID-19 work environment, this paper examines a timely and significant event that is likely to have a long-lasting impact on the way in which people work. As accounting firms seek to develop new working models and promote well-being among their employees, they should take note of the findings of this study that gender, rank and firm size result in differential impacts on role stress, burnout and turnover intentions.

Effective Holistic Approaches to Reducing Nurse Stress and Burnout During COVID-19.

Prolonged exposure to work-related stress can lead to nurse burnout, potentiating clinical and medication errors and low-quality patient care. Holistic approaches (such as mindfulness training, "zen rooms," and massage chairs, among others) have been shown to reduce nurses' anxiety, stress, and burnout. To evaluate the use of "serenity lounges" (dedicated rooms where nurses can take workday breaks for the purposes of relaxation and rejuvenation) and massage chairs on nurses' anxiety, stress, and burnout. This quality improvement project analyzed 67 paired responses to surveys filled out by nurses before and after their use of serenity lounges at a medical center in Los Angeles between November 2020 and May 2021. Following successful implementation of a serenity lounge on a pilot unit, this project was expanded to a total of 10 units, including COVID-19 cohort units. As part of this expansion, massage chairs were added to 10 serenity lounges, along with items such as wipes, gloves, and shoe covers to enable nurses to adhere to infection control protocols. Analysis of the 67 paired responses to pre- and post-lounge-use surveys revealed a significant reduction in feelings of emotional exhaustion, burnout, frustration, being worn out, stress, and anxiety after use of the serenity lounge. Improvements in feelings of emotional exhaustion, being worn out, and being anxious were also noted after using the massage chair for at least 10 to 20 minutes. These results highlight the importance of providing a holistic approach, including a serene space, massage equipment, and other amenities, to help nurses reduce feelings of anxiety, stress, and burnout, particularly during challenging times such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Work–family conflict and toddler parenting: a dynamic approach to the role of parents’ daily work–family experiences in their day-to-day parenting practices through feelings of parental emotional exhaustion

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to examine associations between daily fluctuations in work–family conflict (i.e. work-to-family interference [WFI] and family-to-work interference [FWI]) and daily fluctuations in toddler parenting (i.e. controlling parenting practices), thereby investigating day-to-day feelings of parental emotional exhaustion as an underlying mechanism. Both mothers and fathers participated in a five-day diary study when their child was in the first year of kindergarten (N = 118, 53.39% fathers). At the between-person level, work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) was significantly related to controlling parenting practices. Further, an indirect effect was found between work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) and controlling parenting via parental emotional exhaustion. At the within-person level, work–family conflict (both WFI and FWI) was not directly related to controlling parenting practices but was indirectly related to controlling parenting via feelings of emotional exhaustion. The findings highlight the importance of balancing work and family life, both in terms of parents’ mental health (i.e. parental emotional exhaustion) as in terms of the quality of parenting.

How to moderate emotional exhaustion among public healthcare professionals?

This paper analyzes the mediating role of employees’ emotional exhaustion between laissez-faire leadership and employees’ job attitudes (intrinsic satisfaction and turnover intention), and also the moderating role of influence at work, interactional justice and helping behaviors on employees’ feelings of emotional exhaustion. Structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis were used in a sample of 511 public healthcare professionals. The results show that emotional exhaustion partially mediates the relationships between laissez-faire leadership and both intrinsic satisfaction and turnover intention. Influence at work moderates the relationship between laissez-faire leadership and emotional exhaustion; interactional justice moderates the relationship between emotional exhaustion and intrinsic satisfaction; and extra-role behaviors moderate the relationship between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. To date, there are few studies analyzing the mediating role of emotional exhaustion in public healthcare, and there are no studies analyzing how its negative effects can be moderated. The conclusions may help human resources managers design new strategies to prevent and mitigate emotional exhaustion and contribute healthcare employees to cope with its serious effects, encouraging a healthy environment that gives priority to workers’ well-being and service quality.

PREVALENCE OF BURNOUT AMONG CLINICAL UNDERGRADUATES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN

Burnout is described as a syndrome may result from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, especially among people whose profession involves numerous direct interactions with people. Undergraduate clinical students are typically exposed to such conditions predisposing to burnout in our practice area. It is probable that this may affect their academic performances and general well-being; hence this study sought to provide information on prevalence of burnout among University of Ibadan clinical students. A total of 361 students at the clinical phase of their training for degrees in Medicine and Surgery (n=185); Physiotherapy (n= 28); Dentistry (n=73); and Medical Laboratory Sciences (n=75) at the University of Ibadan were recruited using proportionally stratified random sampling technique. Socio-demographic information were obtained and their burnout level assessed using Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Data were summarised using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics of chi-square test of association and kruskal-wallis at p= 0.05.Results showed a pattern of high prevalence of burnout in the depersonalization domain (72.6%), 44% had feelings of low personal accomplishment, and 12.7% had feelings of emotional exhaustion on the MBI grading. Both the low personal accomplishment and feeling of emotional exhaustion are precursor to actual burnout. Results suggest that about 7 in every 10 students experience burnout or are at a risk of having burnout. The outcome of this study points to the need for appropriate measures to guard against possible factors predisposing to burnout among clinical students at different levels of their trainings.

Using Collaborative, Mixed-Methods Research to Determine Professional Self-care’s Relation to Burnout Among Police Officers at a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative Site

Burnout, an occupational syndrome characterized by feelings of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment, is highly prevalent among police officers, perhaps as a result of regular and repeated exposure to job-related stressful events. Burnout might be especially problematic for officers working with sexual assault victims, as this sensitive work requires officers to be exposed to trauma while conducting trauma-informed, victim-centered investigations. The current study used interagency, multidisciplinary collaboration and a mixed-method design to examine professional self-care as a mechanism to combat burnout among police officers (n = 331) at a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) site in the southeastern region of the United States. Professional self-care better predicted each component of burnout than did exposure to job-related trauma, being injured on-duty, number of critical incident types experienced, and years on the force. Specifically, engagement in professional development activities best predicted reduced emotional exhaustion and depersonalization of victims. Officers’ qualitative responses supported quantitative survey data, with 48% requesting an increase in professional self-care opportunities (e.g., more trainings, professional support) offered by their organization. Although the nature of policing often precludes a route to reducing officers’ exposure to job-related stressful events, findings suggest that law enforcement organizations can positively impact officer burnout by enhancing professional self-care and broadly providing critical professional development experiences.

Why busy leaders may have exhausted followers: a multilevel perspective on supportive leadership

PurposeThis study of leaders and followers working in day-care centers aims to use a multilevel perspective on supportive leadership to examine its role in linking workload at the leader level and emotional exhaustion at the follower level. Integrating theoretical work on social support with conservation of resources (COR) theory, leaders' workload is proposed to be positively related to followers' feelings of emotional exhaustion through constraining the enactment of supportive leadership.Design/methodology/approachMultisource survey data from 442 followers and their leaders from 68 teams were collected to test the hypotheses.FindingsMultilevel analyses showed that leader workload was negatively related to followers' perception of supportive leadership, which, in turn, was positively related to followers' levels of emotional exhaustion. Leader workload was indirectly and positively related to follower emotional exhaustion via supportive leadership.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides initial support for the idea that work contextual factors at the leader level create boundaries for the extent to which leaders may provide support to their followers and draws attention to the accountability of leaders' work contextual factors for followers' well-being.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that organizations must not focus narrowly on training leaders on how to benefit followers but should also aim to optimize leaders' levels of workload to enable them to act in a supportive manner.Originality/valueBy considering both the receivers (i.e. followers) and providers (i.e. leaders) of support simultaneously, we take a crossover approach to COR theory and acknowledge that work contextual factors at higher organizational levels may spread to employee well-being at lower levels of the organization.

‘Professional Inefficacy is the Exact Opposite of the Passionate Social Worker’: Discursive Analysis of Neoliberalism within the Writing on Self-care in Social Work

ABSTRACT Social work experiences notable rates of burnout and subsequent attrition. In the social work academic and practice-based literature, self-care strategies are proposed as a means of mitigating the effects of workplace stress and feelings of emotional exhaustion. However, the neoliberal self-care discourse intended to alleviate feelings of distress may in fact be exacerbating professional burnout. Yet discourse analysis allows for a critical examination of neoliberalism’s discourse of social worker self-care.

Teachers' Emotional Exhaustion: Associations With Their Typical Use of and Implicit Attitudes Toward Emotion Regulation Strategies.

Teaching is an emotionally challenging profession, sometimes resulting in high levels of teacher stress, burnout, and attrition. It has often been claimed that certain emotion regulation strategies can lower teachers’ feelings of burnout. The use of cognitive reappraisal (i.e., cognitively changing the emotional impact of a situation) has generally been associated with positive outcomes, whereas using expressive suppression (i.e., inhibiting emotional responses) usually has negative consequences. The present study investigated the association between teachers’ typical use of these two emotion regulation strategies (i.e., cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) and their feelings of emotional exhaustion. Because there is evidence that regulating emotions could involve higher costs when regulation goes against individual preferences, we also explored the potentially moderating effect of teachers’ implicit attitudes toward emotion regulation versus emotion expression on the association between typical use of emotion regulation strategies and teachers’ emotional exhaustion with an Implicit Association Test (IAT). We included the interpersonal teacher–student relationship (in terms of teacher agency and communion), teacher experience, and teacher gender as covariates in our analyses. Participants were 94 teachers in secondary education, vocational education, and teacher training for secondary education. Replicating findings from prior studies, hierarchical regression analyses showed that typical use of cognitive reappraisal, but not expressive suppression, was significantly related to lower levels of teachers’ emotional exhaustion. Teachers’ implicit attitudes toward emotion regulation versus emotion expression moderated the relationship between the use of emotion regulation strategies and emotional exhaustion, but only in a subsample with more experienced teachers. Teachers who showed more interpersonal agency in class and had more years of teaching experience reported lower levels of emotional exhaustion. Interpersonal communion and gender were not directly associated with feelings of exhaustion. Implications for teacher training and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The role of emotional exhaustion among public healthcare professionals

PurposeThe nature of public healthcare highlights not only the need of understanding the role of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between employees’ job demands and desirable employees’ job attitudes, but also to adequate the combination of certain job resources and other organisational variables to moderate the employees’ feelings of emotional exhaustion. The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachThis viewpoint designs the theoretical approach that aims to understand the mediating role of emotional exhaustion among healthcare professionals and the capacity of certain variables to moderate it. The nature of the variables considered and the design of the theoretical model proposed highlights structural equation modelling as an optimal methodology to be used among a sample of European healthcare professionals.FindingsManagers should be able to design strategies to mitigate, eliminate and prevent the causes of emotional exhaustion in public healthcare with the objective to improve the health and quality of life of healthcare professionals, and consequently the quality of the service provided to patients and their families.Originality/valueThis viewpoint highlights the importance of analysing the influence of employees’ emotional exhaustion on their attitudes in public healthcare. Direct relationships between emotional exhaustion and certain antecedents or consequences have been studied previously; however, studies analysing the mediating role of emotional exhaustion are very scarce and show mixed results. There are also few studies analysing the moderating role of certain job resources and other organisational variables in the relationships between employees’ job demands, employees’ emotional exhaustion and employees’ job attitudes.

What makes a good work break? Off-job and on-job recovery as predictors of employee health.

Recovery from work today seems to be crucial for health care employees’ health, so it is important to uncover ways how to facilitate and improve adequate recovery from work. Focusing on the recovery concept of detachment from work, this study investigated associations between detachment after work and during work breaks and individual health among health care employees from a general hospital in the Netherlands. An online cross-sectional survey study was conducted comprising a sample of 368 health care employees of different departments. Controlling for demographics in hierarchical regression analyses, results showed that when health care employees experienced more cognitive detachment after work, they reported less concentration problems. Second, when employees experienced more emotional detachment after work, they reported less feelings of emotional exhaustion, less depressive feelings, and less sleep problems. Finally, in case employees experienced more physical detachment after work, they reported less concentration problems, less feelings of emotional exhaustion, less sleep problems and less physical health problems. No significant associations were found for detachment during work breaks. In conclusion, findings add to current recovery research showing that detachment after work is an important predictor for health care employees’ health.

Individuals’ experiences with brief admission during the implementation of the brief admission skåne RCT, a qualitative study

Background: Brief admission (BA) is an adjunctive treatment option for individuals with self-harming behavior, having traits of borderline personality disorder (BPD). It is offered alongside outpatient psychotherapy for the purpose of strengthening autonomy, self-reflection and self-care and to increase the likelihood of being able to stay in therapy by avoiding lengthy inpatient hospitalizations.Aims: To investigate participants’ experiences with BA during the pilot phase of the Brief Admission Skåne Randomized Controlled Trial (BASRCT), in order to detect possible strengths and limitations of the intervention and gain knowledge to facilitate implementation of BA at other treatment centers.Method: Eight participants randomized to BA were interviewed to obtain their experience of BA, or alternatively their reasons for choosing not to use BA. Thematic analysis was conducted upon their transcribed interviews.Results: Reported as most helpful by the participants was the structure/routines at the ward and the positive attitudes from the staff. However, some individuals reported problems with perceived negative attitudes from the staff administering BA and negative rumination about themselves. The reported reasons to request BA were: preventing urges to self-harm from escalating; ending isolation; preventing longer admissions and forced admission; feelings of emotional exhaustion, and the need for rest and support in re-creating a daily routine. Reasons for not requesting BA were fear of rejection, questioning the method; presumed room shortage; difficulties in deciding whether one’s problems are serious enough; experiencing the situation to be too clinically acute.Conclusion: The results from this study indicated the importance of repeated staff education on all aspects of BA when it is being newly implemented, as well as the importance of working with attitudes of staff delivering BA. These were the key ingredients in making BA implementation successful. Our findings may be of value to other treatment centers implementing BA for the first time.Trial registration: NCT02985047.

Emocionalna iskustva učitelja kao prediktori njihova mentalnoga zdravlja

Učiteljska je profesija emocionalno zahtjevna profesija te učitelji navode kako u svom poslu doživljavaju različite ugodne i neugodne emocije značajnoga intenziteta. Različite emocije koje učitelji doživljavaju u odnosu s profesionalnim aktivnostima mogu utjecati na njihov profesionalni, ali i osobni razvoj. Učestalo se doživljavanje negativnih emocija u svakodnevnom radu u odnosu s učenicima, roditeljima, kolegama i nadređenima, uz doživljaj emocionalne iscrpljenosti (kao važnog aspekta sagorijevanja na poslu) može nepovoljno odraziti na psihološku dobrobit učitelja te povećati zastupljenost i psihopatoloških simptoma. U ovom je istraživanju ispitana uloga različitih emocija koje učitelji mogu doživjeti u odnosu s učenicima u razredu, roditeljima i obrazovnim sustavom, kao i doživljaj emocionalne iscrpljenosti u objašnjenju zastupljenosti anksioznih, depresivnih i somatizacijskih simptoma kod učitelja. Istraživanje je provedeno na uzorku od 1149 osnovnoškolskih učitelja predmetne nastave iz različitih hrvatskih regija. Ukupno je sudjelovalo 210 učitelja i 939 učiteljica u dobi između 24 i 65 godina. S obzirom su na rodne razlike u zastupljenosti pojedinih psihopatoloških simptoma provedene zasebne analize na poduzorcima učitelja i učiteljica. Provedbom je hijerarhijskih regresijskih analiza utvrđeno da, uz kontrolu duljine radnog staža (koja značajno doprinosi objašnjenju simptoma somatizacije kod učiteljica), određene emocije (zasićenost, ljubav, ljutnja i beznađe doživljene u odnosu s učenicima; anksioznost doživljena u odnosu s roditeljima, te doživljaj razočaranosti u obrazovni sustav), kao i doživljaj emocionalne iscrpljenosti ostvaruju značajne samostalne doprinose objašnjenju anksioznih, depresivnih i somatizacijskih simptoma učitelja. Dobiveni rezultati upućuju na to da objašnjenju psihopatoloških simptoma učitelja i učiteljica u najvećoj mjeri pridonosi doživljaj emocionalne iscrpljenosti kao posljedica svakodnevnog pritiska na poslu.

The effect of customer incivility on service employees’ customer orientation through double-mediation of surface acting and emotional exhaustion

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine how customer incivility affects service employees’ emotional labor (i.e. surface acting) and the way surface acting augments their emotional exhaustion at work, and in turn, damages customer orientations of service employees.Design/methodology/approach– Using a sample of 309 department store sales employees in South Korea, a two-stage mediation model is used in terms of structural equation modeling.Findings– The results indicate that customer incivility is positively related to service employees’ use of surface acting; this, in turn, results in feelings of emotional exhaustion, which are negatively related to their customer orientation. That is, the findings of this study shows that the negative relationship between customer incivility and service employees’ customer orientation was fully and sequentially mediated by service employees’ surface acting and emotional exhaustion.Research limitations/implications– The main limitation is the nature of the cross-sectional data the authors used in the analysis. It gives us reason to be very cautious in reaching conclusions concerning causal relationships among variables, since the authors did not capture longitudinal variation.Practical implications– The research shows that customer incivility has a negative effect on service employees’ customer-oriented behaviors since experiences of customer incivility among emotionally exhausted employees via surface acting generates inadequate and unfair sense-making related to the treatment offered by customers, which increases the tendency of decreasing their effort and loyalty for customers to prevent further loss of emotional resources. Therefore, service organizations should devise appropriate strategies and implement systematic programs for reducing employee exposure to customer incivility, or preventing it altogether.Originality/value– The current study broadens the conceptual work and empirical studies in customer incivility literature by representing a fundamental mechanism of why customer incivility negatively affects service employees’ customer orientation. The primary contribution of the study is to gain a deeper understanding of how customer incivility leads to lower employee customer-oriented behaviors through double mediating effects of surface acting and emotional exhaustion.

The bad boss takes it all: How abusive supervision and leader–member exchange interact to influence employee silence

Abusive supervision is a dysfunctional leadership behavior that adversely affects its targets and the organization as a whole. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, the present research expands our knowledge on its destructive impact. Specifically, we propose a moderated mediation model wherein abusive supervision predicts subordinate's silence behavior through emotional exhaustion, with leader–member exchange (LMX) acting as the contextual condition. Two-wave data collected from 152 employees in the service industry in Macau supported our hypothesized model. We found that abused subordinates resort to remain silent in the workplace due to their feelings of emotional exhaustion. Further, the presence of high LMX makes the adverse impact of abusive supervision even worse. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. We also offer several promising directions for future research.

Burnout among English Language Teachers in Iran: Do Socio-demographic Characteristics Matter?

The present study aimed at extending prior studies on teacher burnout by exploring factors which contribute to Iranian English language teachers’ feelings of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Data were collected via a survey that employed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach & Jackson, 1986). Overall, findings revealed that English teachers (N = 40) were experiencing high levels of reduced personal accomplishment (M = 18.72) and emotional exhaustion (M = 17.80). Results of one-way ANOVA showed significant differences among foreign language teachers with respect to burnout subscales. From among age, gender, marital status, and level of education, only the level of education had a significant, moderate, and positive relationship with burnout. Results are discussed in relationship to findings from international studies related to English language teachers’ burnout, and the theoretical and practical implications are highlighted.

To stop or not to stop: an empirical assessment of the determinants of early retirement among active and retired senior teachers.

While the official retirement age for most Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is 65 years, the average employee in the majority of OECD countries retires considerably earlier. With the coming retirement of the baby boom generation, increasing life expectancy, and budget restrictions due to the financial crisis, most countries want to motivate employees to work longer. For these reasons, studying early retirement is highly relevant. In this article, we examine the determinants of early retirement among working and retired senior teachers between 45 and 65 years old in Flanders, Belgium. Although a widespread early exit culture exists among teachers and teacher shortages are expected in several countries, little attention has been given to the specific determinants of early retirement among teachers. Using multivariate linear regression analysis, we study the preferred retirement age of working teachers (n = 1,878) and the actual retirement age of retired teachers (n = 1,246). Financial factors, feelings of emotional exhaustion, and dissatisfaction with nonteaching-related workload (such as meetings and paperwork) have an important influence on the retirement decision. Results show that the majority of teachers make use of early exit schemes. This illustrates the existence of a widespread early exit culture among senior teachers in Flanders.

Prevalence of burnout syndrome of Greek child care workers and kindergarten teachers

The present study, employing the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Educators Survey, aims to compare and explore possible differences to the levels of burnout reported by the two main professional groups working in the early childhood education and care sector in Greece, that is kindergarten teachers and childcare workers. The correlation between the levels of burnout reported and participants’ demographic data were also examined. Research data revealed that kindergarten teachers experience slightly more feelings of emotional exhaustion, whereas childcare workers experience more feelings of depersonalisation. Furthermore, correlation analysis indicated that subscales predict one another whereas only personal accomplishment subscale had been found to be correlated with participants’ demographic data. Suggestions for future research are formulated.

Longitudinal relationships between stress of conscience and concepts of importance

The aim of this observational longitudinal cohort study was to describe relationships over time between degrees of stress of conscience, perceptions of conscience, burnout scores and assessments of person-centred climate and social support among healthcare personnel working in municipal care of older people. This study was performed among registered nurses and nurse assistants (n = 488). Data were collected on two occasions. Results show that perceiving one's conscience as a burden, having feelings of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and noticing disturbing conflicts between co-workers were positively associated with stress of conscience. No significant changes were observed during the year under study, but degrees of stress of conscience and burnout scores were higher than in previous studies, suggesting that downsizing and increased workloads can negatively affect healthcare personnel. Following and expressing one's conscience in one's work, and perceiving social support from superiors are of importance in buffering the effects of stress of conscience.