Culture of Work and Burnout among Nurses in a Third World Setting

This is a cross sectional study which looked into the interaction between situational factors, role stressors, hazard exposure and personal factors among 135 nurses in the Philippine General Hospital (PGH). The principles of the Maslach Burnout Inventory, Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, Pareek Organizational Role Stressors, Lu’s Hazard Exposures, and R. Schwarzer’s Perceived Self-Efficacy. Stratified sampling techniques were used based on ward and unit assignments. Majority of the respondents were female (77.8%), married (54.8%) and belonged to the 31 to 40 age group (37%). More than half (58.5%) of the respondents have reported being ill from work in the past 12 months, and 59.3% have said that they have missed work because of an illness. Top five symptoms among the respondents were: headache (78.5%), cough and colds (74.1%), back pain(65.2%), leg cramps (46.7%) and sleep disturbances (42.2%). Upon analysis, the following were significantly associated with burnout: organizational role stress, hazard exposure, self-efficacy, age, number of years as a nurse, illness in the past 12 months, migraine, dizziness, sleep disorder, cough and colds and diarrhea. After multiple regression analysis, organizational role stress (p= .000), migraine (p= .001), age (p= .018) and illness in the past 12 months (p= .000) were found to be significant predictors of burnout. Significant interactions were also found between self-efficacy and hazard exposure, self-efficacy and organizational role stress, and situational factors and hazard exposure (p=.000, .002 and .005, respectively). One-way ANOVA also showed that nurses in inpatient departments and ICUs had significantly higher burnout levels than those in outpatient services. The contribution of the study is seen in advancing new concepts in the already existing framework of burnout, and thus, can assist the nurses and the hospital administration on how to control such phenomenon. Solutions should be multi-dimensional and involves the individual, organizational factors and work conditions.

KeyWords: Burnout, Nurses, Organizational Culture