Occupational Health: Technostress and Burnout among Nurses

Technology presents a higher importance in numerous professional activities, including nursing. As a health care activity, nursing presents growing technical, relational and technological demands, which increases stress vulnerability among professionals. This study aims to identify technostress and burnout levels of a sample of nurses working on a northeast Local Health Unit. Results revealed low levels of technostress and burnout, and positive correlations between emotional exhaustion as burnout dimension and all technostress dimensions. Regression analysis showed that burnout explains approximately 28% of anxiety related with information and communication technology (ICT) and 37% of fatigue for the use of ICT. Socio-demographic and professionals variables as a whole predict 43% of anxiety and 19% of fatigue related with ICT, showing poor predictive value compared to burnout. Although the results are not on a critical level, regular monitoring studies are important on an ageing working population, and with longer careers, in which the growing it challenges of technology may increase stress vulnerability and affect the health and well-being, of these professionals, in their workplace.