OCCUPATIONAL BURNOUT IN HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS IN A UNIVERSITY CONTEXT
Keywords: nursing, quality of life, exhaustion, health professionals, hospitals
Objective: to evaluate professional accomplishment and factors associated with occupational burnout (BO) among health professionals. Methodology: An institution based cross-sectional study was conducted on 436 health care providers. BO was detected using Maslach BO Inventory (MBI) tool. Data was collected by means of self-administered questionnaires comprised of questions concerning socio demographics, education and training and then followed by the MBI, used to identify the level of professional exhaustion. Results: Emotional Exhaustion (EE) was associated with education level and work place of nursing technicians. Depersonalization (DP) was associated with gender in nursing technicians. For nurses, DP showed a significant correlation with education level, whereas for doctors DP was associated with number of jobs. Lower levels of professional accomplishment (PA) were observed in unspecialized doctors when compared to those with further training, while higher PA was observed in post graduated professionals when compared to those without post-graduation. Conclusions: High EE was found in professionals from the maternity unit, as well as in professionals with lower educational levels. DP was found to be higher in Physicians with several jobs and in female nurses, while low PA was found in unspecialized doctors. Higher PA was associated with post graduated professionals.