DETERMINING THE EFFECT OF STRESS AND JOB BURNOUT ON THE LIFE SATISFACTION OF NURSING STAFF

Abstract

Both job satisfaction and a nurse’s individual traits may have an impact on nurses’ life satisfaction. Given the relatively high level of stress associated with the nursing profession, account should be taken of the fact that numerous destructive factors also affect life satisfaction. In the nursing profession commitment, concern for patient welfare, a high sense of responsibility for the life and health of another person causes both an excessive psychological and physical burden, which in many cases leads to broadly defined stress and in consequence to burnout syndrome. The aim of the paper was directed toward the analysis of stress, burnout and life satisfaction and demonstrating the relationship between these variables in a group of surgical and psychiatric nurses. Two groups of equal size participated in the study. They included 100 surgical nurses (average age: 47/average years of experience: 25), 100 psychiatric nurses (average age: 42/average years of experience: 19) employed by hospitals situated in the south of Poland. Research tools: occupational burnout – the Maslach Burnout Inventory, stress - the Stevan Hobfoll's Self-Assessment Questionnaire to measure stress, life satisfaction – Satisfaction with Life Scale, and questionnaire of socio-demographic data were administered. Stress and occupational burnout are shown to only have an impact on the life satisfaction of surgical nurses. The less burnt-out nurses felt with regard to lowered sense of personal achievement, the higher their life satisfaction levels were. In the context of work, stress plays a role of mediator in the relationship between life satisfaction and the second dimension of occupational burnout – depersonalization in both surveyed groups. A sense of life satisfaction is desired by every human being and may refer to different aspects of their lives such as: work, income, family and friends. In reality job satisfaction has a significant influence on the individual’s feeling of life satisfaction. The obtained results clearly indicate that some action needs to be taken in order to prevent professional burnout. It is therefore sensible to start action already at university and include the subject of occupational burnout, its causes, and ways of coping with it in the teaching curriculum.