The effectiveness of a training workshop on burnout in nurses

The effectiveness of a training workshop to combat burnout in nurses was investigated in this study. An attempt also was made to determine whether or not benefits of that workshop would be maintained over a three month period.Burnout is a phenomenon which affects those in the helping professions. Much has been written of a descriptive nature but little has been done to empirically determine procedures which might reduce burnout in those who are already experiencing it.Ninety-five staff nurses, representing two hospitals, volunteered to participate in this study. One hospital was a neuropsychiatric facility and the other was a general medical hospital.The dependent variable for this study was a burnout score as determined by the Staff Burnout Scale for Health Professionals (SBS-HP). This is a 30 item self-assessment inventory, which addresses cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and physiological reactions.Subjects were randomly assigned to either a treatment condition or a control condition. The experimental group attended a 7 ½ hour workshop which utilized didactic presentations, group discussion and problem solving, audio-visual material, self-assessment, training in progressive relaxation, an introduction to cognitive restructuring, and the development of social support systems.The research design chosen was a one-way or single factor design utilizing a test and retest of the SBS-HP. The method of data analysis was a one-way multivariate analysis of variance with a step-down F test. The selected level of significance was .05.The null hypothesis was not rejected. There was no significant difference between the treatment group and the control group on the long-term posttest after covarying the short-term posttest scores. Also, there was no significant difference between the treatment group and the control group on the short-term posttest.Thesis (Ph. D.