Estrés En Centros Gerontológicos

Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics 48 (2009) 246–249

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Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/archger

Personal determinants of burnout in nursing staff at geriatric centers
´ Manuel Gandoy-Crego a,*, Miguel Clemente b, Jose Manuel Mayan-Santos a, Pablo Espinosa b
a b

´n Universidad de Santiago deCompostela, Departamento de Enfermerı´a, Escuela Universitaria de Enfermerı´a, Avenida Xoa XXIII s/n, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain ˜a, ˜a, ˜a, Universidad de La Corun Departamento de Psicologı´a, Campus de Elvin 15071 La Corun Spain

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 2 May 2007 Received in revised form 24 January 2008 Accepted 31 January 2008 Availableonline 21 March 2008 Keywords: Burnout of nursing staff Nursing of the elderly Motivational values Personality of the nursing persons

There is a high prevalence of stress in the workplace among nursing personnel at elderly care-centers. The general impression is that these high stress levels are related to conflict within the workplace. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether personalfactors (in particular personality and values), are related to burnout. For this reason we asked a sample of 42 nursing personnel from care-centers for the elderly to complete a self-administered questionnaire on conflict at work, stress at work, personality and motivational values for nursing professionals in elderly residences. Personality variables and motivational values were found to besignificantly related to the appearance of stress in the workplace. ß 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Nursing personnel are the care-givers more directly engaged with patients of all the geriatric centers staff, and despite the fact that on many occasions they are relegated to a secondary position they are one the main links of the care chain (Evers et al., 2001; ˜ ¨Santos Franco and Palacios Cena, 2001; Engstrom et al., 2006). It has been argued (Matrunola, 1996) that certain kinds of jobs tend to generate stress which in turn may produce serious health, physiological, emotional and behavioral problems. Providing continued care tends to provoke high levels of stress, fatigue, irritation and mood alterations, which negatively influence the caregiver’s quality oflife, as well as the quality of care-taking (Jones and Peters, 1992; Novack and Chappell, 1994; Baxter, 1997; Alexander and Klein, 2001; Boykin and Winland Brown, 2001; Weman and Fagerber, 2006). There are a number of stress symptoms at work, like absenteeism, low productivity or high rate of rotation, among others, which may be construed as burnout, a term coined by Freudenberger (1974), and definedas the ‘‘energy exhaustion experienced by professionals when they feel outdone by the problems of others’’. Maslach (1976), in turn, defines burnout as ‘‘Chronic stress produced by contact with clients (clients, patients or users) that leads to extenuation and to an emotional gap with clients in the workplace’’. He also provides the most accepted operational definition of burnout is the three-partmodel (Maslach,

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 981 56 31 00x12083; fax: +34 981 54 70 58. E-mail address: mgandoy@usc.es (M. Gandoy-Crego). 0167-4943/$ – see front matter ß 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.archger.2008.01.016

1976; Maslach and Jackson, 1981, 1982), which makes reference to emotional fatigue (EF), depersonalization (DP), and reduced personalperformance (RPP). The nursing personnel are at high-risk of developing this syndrome for a number of reasons: they have direct contact with patients and their suffering and needs; they endure difficult organizational work conditions, usually related to work shifts and lack of autonomy; they are poorly paid; carry out conflicting or ambiguous roles; and they must deal with relatives who in some...