Burnout and its correlates among nursing staff of intensive care units at a tertiary care center.

Background: Burnout syndrome has been widely reported in nursing staff. It is more pronounced in intensive care setting (up to 80%). This survey was designed to assess the prevalence of burnout and its correlates among critical care nurses.

Methods: Anonymous questionnaire was distributed to all ICU nursing staff of a tertiary care teaching hospital. Questionnaire had 25 questions covering - demography, job characteristics, Visual Analogue Scale for stress, co-worker support, work-life balance, question for measuring burnout, job satisfaction, turnover intention, organizational commitment, for depression screening and psychosomatic symptoms. The burnout scale score was used to dichotomize into low burnout (<3) or high burnout (> = 3) group. These two groups were compared using Chi-square test, Fischer's exact test for categorical variables and independent -test for continuous variables. Significant variables were entered in multivariate logistic regression analysis.

Results: Out of 150 ICU nurses, 125 (83.3%) gave completely filled questionnaires which were evaluated. 47 (37.6%) participants reported experiencing high burnout. Binary logistic regression model revealed that lack of specialized ICU training (OR = 4.28, 95% CI: 1.62 to 11.34, = 0.003), performing extra duty in last month (OR = 5.28, 95% CI: 1.90 to 14.67, = 0.001), High physical symptoms in last 12 months (OR = 4.73, 95% CI: 1.56 to 14.36, = 0.006) and mid-level experience (1-5 years) were significantly associated with burnout.

Conclusions: Burnout is significantly prevalent (37.6%) among intensive care nurses. Specialized training and limiting work hours can help in mitigating this problem. High frequency of physical symptoms could be early indicators of burnout.