Burnout and its association with resilience in nurses:A cross-sectional study

Aims and objectives. To investigate the state of burnout on Chinese nurses and its association with personal resilience.Background. With the worldwide shortage of nurses, nurse burnout is considered as one of the main contributing factors and has been studied in recent years. Given the well-documented high level of burnout among nurses, resilience is expected to be a significant predictor of nurse burnout. The association between burnout and resilience has not previously been investigated extensively. Design. A cross-sectional survey design was selected. Methods. 1061 nurses from 6 separate three-level hospitals in Hunan Province, China returned self-reported questionnaires from March to June 2015. Data were collected using a socio-demographic sheet, Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC).Results. Nurses experienced severe burnout symptoms and showed a moderate level of resilience. Three metrics of burnout had significantly negative correlations with the total score and following variables of resilience. Linear regression analysis showed resilience, especially strength, demographic characteristics (exercise, alcohol use and marital status) and job characteristics (income per month, ratio of patients to nurses, shift work and professional rank) were the main predictors of three metrics of burnout.Conclusion. The findings of this study could help nurse managers and hospital administrators to have a better understanding of nurse burnout and resilience. The significantly negative relationship between burnout symptoms and resilience has been demonstrated, which informs the role of resilience in influencing burnout.