Burnout among nurses practicing in critical care units: Predicting the contributing factors

Critical care nurses work in complex healthcare environments, which makes them more susceptible to burnout. Despite extensive research on burnout among nurses no previous study targeted burnout contributing factors in Iraq. Thus, this study aimed to determine the predicting the most influential factors in the development of burnout among critical care nurses.

A descriptive correlational design was used with 377 nurses who were practicing in critical care units in 13 public teaching hospitals in Iraq. Data were collected using socio-demographic, professional characteristics of nurses, Nurses Alarm Fatigue questionnaire, Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, and Burnout Assessment Tool. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression were used for data analysis.

The multiple regression showed that nurses' anxiety, stress, alarm fatigue, depression, and time span positively predict nurses' burnout (P value = .000.,000.,000.,033.,036), respectively. On the other hand, only nurses' age inversely predicts burnout level (P value = .008).

Anxiety, stress, alarm fatigue, depression, and time span are the most influential factors in the development of burnout. Age was the only variable that predicted burnout inversely.