Psychological Detachment Among Intensive Care Unit Nurses: A Cross-Sectional Study

Intensive care unit nurses face sustained workload, vigilance and emotionally demanding care. Psychological detachment during non-work time is an important recovery experience, but evidence in this population remains limited.

To describe psychological detachment among intensive care unit nurses and identify demographic, departmental psychological support resources availability, social support and burnout dimensions associated with it.

A single-centre cross-sectional survey. Registered intensive care unit nurses from a tertiary grade A general hospital in eastern China were recruited by convenience sampling between June and July 2025. Participants completed demographic, psychological detachment, burnout and social support questionnaires. Descriptive analyses, univariate comparisons, correlation analyses and multivariable linear regression were performed. The study was reported in accordance with the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology checklist.

Of 220 questionnaires submitted, 199 valid responses were analysed (90.45%). The mean psychological detachment score was 11.68 ± 3.85. Mean emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and personal accomplishment scores were 37.75 ± 8.15, 16.93 ± 4.87 and 25.91 ± 6.25, respectively. Psychological detachment correlated negatively with emotional exhaustion (r = -0.230, p = 0.001) and positively with subjective support (r = 0.175, p = 0.013). Departmental psychological support resources availability (B = 1.674, β = 0.216, p = 0.001), head-nurse position (B = -4.776, β = -0.195, p = 0.004) and emotional exhaustion (B = -0.115, β = -0.243, p < 0.001) were independently associated with psychological detachment.

In this single-centre sample of intensive care unit nurses, the reported availability of departmental psychological support resources was associated with higher psychological detachment, whereas head-nurse position and emotional exhaustion were associated with lower psychological detachment.

These findings suggest that critical care nursing managers may consider departmental psychological support resources availability, nursing position and emotional exhaustion when assessing recovery needs among intensive care unit nurses.