Burnout as a form of mental health problem among nurses in the Philippines

Abstract

Introduction

Nurses are among the health professionals that are confronted with burnout due to workload demands. The dominance of females in the profession reinforce the prevailing notion that the caring professions such as nursing are relegated to women. This gives the study its gender perspective.

Objectives

To determine the interaction between situational, factors, role stressors, hazard exposure and personal factors in the largest tertiary hospital in the Philippines.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study, which aimed to determine the interaction between situational, factors, role stressors, hazard exposure and personal factors among 246 nurses consisting most of females (78.5%) from the different wards and units in the Philippines General Hospital (PGH).

Results

Almost half (49.6%) of the respondents reported being ill due to work in the past year, and 56.1% missed work because of an illness. Correlation statistics using the Spearman's rho showed organizational role stressors was most significant in burnout among nurses in the Philippine's largest tertiary hospital. Organizational role stressors consisted of ten dimensions, namely:

– inter-role distance (IRD);

– role stagnation (RS);

– role expectation conflict (REC);

– role erosion (RE);

– role overload (RO);

– role isolation (RI);

– personal inadequacy (PI);

– self-role distance (SRD);

– role ambiguity;

– resource inadequacy (RIn).

Conclusion

The contribution of the study is in advancing new concepts in the already existing framework of burnout, and thus, can assist nurses and hospital administration on how to control this problem.

Disclosure of interest

The author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.