The status quo and correlational analysis of nursing practices, burnout, and social support among nurses from private hospitals in Dazhou, a less developed area of China.

Objective: To investigate the status quo of nursing practices, job burnout and social support among private hospitals in Dazhou, Sichuan Province, and perform correlational analysis.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted. A total of 244 nurses were surveyed via convenience sampling from 7 private hospitals, which were randomly selected from Dazhou city. A self-designed demographic sociology questionnaire was applied, and the Chinese versions of the Maslach Burnout Scale and the Social Support scale administered from September to November 2022.

Results: The investigated nurses were relatively young (26.84 ± 4.90 years), had a short duration of service, a low academic background, a low professional title and a low income; however, they were highly satisfied with their working environment and had a low level of burnout, and their level of personal achievement was low. Overtime work, education level and number of children had significant impacts on the level of nurse burnout. The level of social support was high, and various dimensions were negatively correlated with the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization dimensions of burnout (r=-0.438, P < 0.01; r=-0.372, P < 0.01) and positively correlated with personal achievement (r = 0.291, P < 0.01). However, the level of social support was not significantly associated with burnout (r=-0.060, p = 0.354).

Conclusions: Nursing managers in private hospitals should consider ways of improving nurses' education, professional titles, working environment and increasing nurses' income to stabilize the nursing team. Efforts should be made to relieve the nurses' pressure, and notice the overtime work and professional development of nurses to enhance the personal sense of achievement. More measures should be taken to improve the level of social support, thereby promoting the continuous improvement of nursing quality. Due to the uneven level of social and economic development in different parts of China, the extensibility of the research needs to be confirmed by more studies, but it still has important reference significance for Northeast Sichuan, which represents areas with similar social and economic levels.