Burnout Evaluation and Potential Predictors in a Greek Cohort of Mental Health Nurses

Background: Job burnout is one of the most serious occupational health hazards, especially, among mental health nurses. It has been attributed among others to staff shortages, health service changes, poor morale and insufficient employee participation in decision-making. Aim: The aim of this study was to measure burnout among mental health nurses, investigate relations between burnout and organizational factors and examine potential predictors of nurses' burnout. Specifically, this study aimed to investigate whether role conflict, role ambiguity, organizational commitment and subsequent job satisfaction could predict each of the three dimensions of burnout. Design/methodology/approach: During current cross sectional, the survey was administered to 232 mental health nurses, employed in four private psychiatric clinics in the region of Larissa, Thessaly, Greece in May 2015. Our findings were based on the responses to 78 usable questionnaires. Different statistical analyses, such as correlation analyses, regression analyses and analyses of variance were performed in order to explore possible relations. Findings: High emotional exhaustion (EE) accounted for 53.8% of the sample, while high depersonalization (DP) and high personal accomplishment (PA) accounted for 24.4% and 25.6%, respectively. The best predictors of burnout were found to be role conflict, satisfaction with workload, satisfaction with training, role ambiguity, satisfaction with pay and presence of serious family issues. Practical implications: These findings have implications for organizational and individual interventions, indicating that mental health nurses' burnout could be reduced, or even prevented by team building strategies, training, application of operation management, clear instructions and psychological support.