Burnout and perceived health in Critical Care nursing professionals

Objective. To assess the level of burnout syndrome in a sample of critical care nursing professionals and analyze its relation with the perception of general health and other sociodemographic and work characteristics. Description. Cross-sectional descriptive study. Site. Intensive Care Unit of the University Hospital Morales Meseguer, Murcia-Spain. Method. Three evaluation tools were used. These included a sociodemographic and work survey, the validated Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) questionnaires and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) in order to assess professional burnout and the general health condition perceived, respectively. Results. Only 42 out of the 56 questionnaires included in the study were valid. This means an answering rate of 75%. The mean score obtained on the emotional tiredness dimension (25.45 +/- 11.15) stands out. About 42.9% of the sample presented psychological or psychosomatic symptoms that could require specialized care. Correlation between burnout and general health perception was statistically significant (r = 0.536; p < 0.001), this highlighting, above all, the association between the emotional level of tiredness and the B-scale of anxiety symptoms (r = 0.648; p = 0.000). The emotional level of professional burnout found was moderate to high among critical care nursing professionals. A total of 11.9% of the studied sample had a high score in the 3 dimensions of the burnout syndrome: emotional tiredness, depersonalization, and lack of personal job performance. Conclusions. Burnout and health levels found indicate high vulnerability in the sample studied and the need to establish prevention/intervention programs in this work context.