Archives of Hellenic Medicine

Last update:

29-Mar-2022

Arch Hellen Med, 39(2), March-April 2022, 236-244

ORIGINAL PAPER

Professional burnout and work satisfaction among the nursing staff in a tertiary public hospital

A. Tsomakou,¹ P. Theodorou,² R. Karagianni,^2,3 P. Galanis⁴
¹General Secretariat for Civil Protection, Athens,
²School of Social Sciences, Postgraduate Course – Health Care Management, Hellenic Open University, Patra,
³Center of Planning and Economic Research, Athens,
⁴Center for Health Services Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Nursing, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

OBJECTIVE To determine the levels of burnout and job satisfaction and their interrelationship among employees in the nursing service of the Pireus General Anti-Cancer Hospital "Metaxa", taking into account demographic characteristics.

METHOD The study sample comprised 100 nurses of all levels working at the "Metaxa" Hospital. The study was conducted using an anonymous, weighted questionnaire with closed-ended questions. The questionnaire was divided into three parts, the first of which covered demographic data, and the second and third consisted of the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Employee Satisfaction Inventory. Data analysis was performed with the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS), version 21.0, and the bilateral level of statistical significance was set at 0.05.

RESULTS The majority of the participants (53%) reported that they experience great emotional exhaustion, and 38% recorded strong symptoms of depersonalization, but 43% reported many personal achievements. Most of the participants stated that they are not satisfied with the working conditions, their salary, the service in which they work and the level of meritocracy of the organization, but they expressed satisfaction with their profession, which they considered remarkable and with their supervisors. In addition, a statistically significant inverse relationship was confirmed between job satisfaction and burnout. Specifically, a high level of job satisfaction was associated with lower levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, better monetary reward was related to personal achievement and better working conditions were related to lower levels of emotional exhaustion.

CONCLUSIONS Improvement in working conditions, provision of incentives, such as the possibility of continuing education and training, and better organization of the work framework, with a clear task line and separation of roles and responsibilities, would all help to increase job satisfaction and reduce the burnout of nursing staff, leading ultimately to improvement of the health services provided by the hospital.

Key words: Burnout, Job satisfaction, Nursing staff, Public hospital.