An analysis of the relationship between burnout, socio-demographic and workplace factors and job satisfaction among emergency department health professionals

Abstract

Introduction: Burnout among emergency medical practitioners and personnel negatively affects career satisfaction and job performance and can lead to mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, and suicide.

Purpose: This study investigated the relationship between the perceptions of burnout and job satisfaction of those working in two different hospital's emergency departments assessing the effect of burnout dimensions and additional factors (age, position, marital status, annual income, employment type, gender, patient encounters, and household economic well-being) on job satisfaction. This study addresses a gap in the literature of the relationships between a) burnout and job satisfaction of emergency department's health care personnel (physicians, nurses, technicians) and b) the factors that are associated with emergency department employees' job satisfaction.

Method: A cross-sectional survey of two hundred and fifty participants was interviewed, using validated instruments (the Maslach Burnout Scale and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire). Participants include 38 physicians, 89 nurses, and 84 medical technicians, and 39 information technicians. The Maslach Burnout Inventory Scale, which assesses emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP) and personal accomplishment (PA), and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ), which assesses intrinsic satisfaction (IS), extrinsic satisfaction (ES) and overall satisfaction (OS), were used for data collection.

Results: Study findings indicate that significant relationship exists between burnout and job satisfaction; annual income and household economic-well-being had a positive association with job satisfaction, whereas gender, age, education, marital status had no significant effect on any form of satisfaction. Moreover, this study reveals that emotional exhaustion (EE) is a significant predictor of all three dimensions of job satisfaction while depersonalization (DP) had no significant showing.

Conclusion: Results of this study suggest that it is not yet clear which factors are salient contributors in demonstrating the relationship between burnout and job satisfaction. This study may draw attention to a better understanding of this relationship will help enable health care administrators to design and implement tools to help increase job satisfaction and decrease burnout as a combined goal rather than treat each issue separately.

Keywords: Burnout; Emergency health professionals; Emergency nursing; Job satisfaction.