Burnout and Its Association with Working Conditions among Greek Hospital Nurses in a Time of Financial Crisis

The recent global economic recession has affected nursing working conditions in terms of salary reductions, increased workload and staff shortages. Poor nursing working conditions are asso-ciated with higher levels of burnout. However in Greece this association has not yet been studied. The aim of this study was to explore financial crisis related changes in nurses ’ working conditions and their associations with burnout. A cross-sectional quantitative survey was conducted and data were collected through self-reported questionnaires from 299 Greek nurses from two Public Hos-pitals in 2012. Multiple linear regression analyses were used in order to find independent factors associated with burnout. The results showed that Greek nurses had high levels of burnout. Satis-faction from the job, quality of care and feeling equivalent with other professionals were inde-pendent predictors of lower emotional exhaustion. Workload increase and willingness to chang