The relationship between fixed and rotating shifts with job burnout in nurses working in critical care areas

While critical care nurses are vulnerable to burnout because of the complex nature of patients' health problems, working in critical care areas has become even more complicated by shift working schedules. This study aimed to determine the relationship between fixed and rotating shifts and burnout in a sample of critical care nurses working in critical care areas.

In this retrospective cohort design, 170 critical care nurses from six selected hospitals were chosen using quota and random sampling and divided into two groups (exposed and non-exposed). Maslach Burnout Inventory was used for data collection and independent t-test and logistic regression was performed to analyze the data.

The mean scores of emotional exhaustion (EE) and depersonalization (DP) were significantly high in the non-exposed group, but the mean score of personal accomplishment (PA) had no significant difference in the two groups. Furthermore, the non-exposed group had 10.1 times the odds to expose to EE and 2.2 times the odds to expose to DP in comparison with the exposed group. High levels of burnout in the non-exposed group were 60%, 32.9%, and 27.1%, and in the exposed group were 12.9%, 18.8% and 43.5% in EE, DP and PA, respectively.

The present study has revealed that critical care nurses with fixed shift schedules display more burnout compared to those working with rotating shift schedules.