THE INFLUENCE OF STRESS CONNECTED WITH PROFESSIONAL WORK ON THE OCCURRENCE OF BURNOUT SYNDROME IN NURSES WORKING IN SURGICAL AND MEDICAL TREATMENT WARDS

Nursing is one of the professions where chronic stress is an inseparable characteristic and stems from the very nature of the profession itself. The job of a nurse involves particular mental burdens. The source of these is another person, one who has most often found themselves in an extreme situation. A nurse carries out her/his duties in a state of strong and long-lasting emotional strain. Inappropriate coping with stress and a lack of support from others in difficult situations leads to the development of burnout syndrome. This syndrome not only lowers, to a great extent, the quality of performed work but also prevents nurses from further professional development.

Aims: The aim of the following paper is to evaluate the influence of stress connected with the professional work of a nurse on the occurrence of burnout syndrome.

Material and methodology: Research was conducted on a group of 103 nurses working at eight hospital wards (surgical and medical treatment) at the District Hospital in Lipsko. The research tool was a questionnaire of the author’s own devise, which contained 34 questions.

Results: Among the examined nurses, 90% concluded that their professional work has a negative impact on their family life and they pointed to their own occupational burnout. Nurses who carried negative emotions over from work to their homes significantly more often showed a lack of satisfaction from their job and signs of occupational burnout. A substantial percentage of the participants considered shift-work and the professional position held to be a detrimental factor in the process of occupational burnout.

Conclusion: The nurses were to a large extent exposed to mental burdens having a negative impact on their work. The vast majority of the respondents felt satisfaction from their job but a significant percentage of the respondents admitted to suffering from symptoms of chronic stress and exhaustion, which may indicate a lack of any support from co-workers and superiors.