Burnout and sleep problems among nurses working in a tertiary hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal

A growing number of professions are being affected by burnout but healthcare providers especially nurses are among the most affected. Due to the need to provide continuous medical care, nurses are a workforce that are obliged to engage in shift work causing sleep inadequacy and disturbance in regular sleep patterns in a working condition that is already physically and emotionally stressful. Burnout and sleep problems affects not just the well-being of nurses but also impacts their work efficiency resulting in reduced quality of care and safety of the patients. As there is very little existing information on this topic in Nepal, this study was conducted to determine the situation of burnout, sleep quality and, their correlates among nurses working in a tertiary hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal. This was a cross-sectional study in which quantitative method was applied. Data was collected from 246 nurses working in the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital using simple random sampling method between March and April, 2022. A self-administered questionnaire containing Oldenburg Burnout Inventory and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was used to collect data and the collected data was analyzed using SPSS 26. More than three out of four nurses (78.5%) were found to have burnout, while 88.3% were disengaged and 83.0% were exhausted. Likewise, more than half of the nurses (58.9%) were found to have a poor sleep quality. Using multivariate logistics regression analysis, factors like position of the nurse (AOR = 6.0, 95% CI; 1.9-18.8, p-vale = 0.002) and, slight problem (AOR = 6.6, 95% CI; 3.0-14.7, p-value<0.001) and somewhat to a big problem (AOR = 6.3, 95% CI; 1.9-20.9, p-value = 0.002) of daytime dysfunction were found to be significantly associated with burnout. These results indicate the necessity to reduce burnout and manage sleep problems of the nurses prioritizing the nursing staffs occupying junior position. Similarly, establishment of interventions like psychological help desk and support groups for the nurses could be beneficial to mitigate the effects of burnout and sleep problems among the nurses.