Environment, workload, and nurse burnout in public hospitals in Chile

To analyze, from an organizational perspective, the problem of nurse burnout in highly complex public hospitals in Chile.

Multicenter, observational, cross-sectional study. According to established inclusion criteria, the universe of hospitals and nurses was the object of work. Data collection was carried out through a nurse survey. Work environment was measured with the instrument Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index, staffing through the nurses' report on patient load, and burnout with the Maslach Burnout Inventory emotional exhaustion subscale.

Thirty-four hospitals (92%) and 1,395 nurses (75.3%) participated in the study. The prevalence of burnout was 34.7%, being higher in Santiago than in other regions of the country (p = 0.001). The logistic regression analyses showed a significant association between work environment and burnout (OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.41-0.79, p = 0.001). No association was established between staffing, skill mix and burnout.

A high percentage of nurses in Chile has burnout, which is significantly associated with the quality of the environment. The implementation of organizational strategies to improve work environments could reduce burnout and improve the quality of care.