Quantification of burnout in emergency nurses: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: Previous studies showed increased levels of absenteeism, drug abuse, depression, and symptoms allied with burnout in emergency nurses. This meta-analysis aimed to quantify the three dimensions of burnout in emergency nurses and estimate the proportion of nurses who experience higher than tolerable levels of burnout.

Materials and methods: A systematic search was conducted on PubMed, Scielo, Xueshu Baidu and Informa databases with a cut-off time between 1997 and 2017 to retrieve published papers in any language that had estimated the burnout levels in emergency nurses by using MBI scale.

Results: We identified a total of 11 eligible studies. The total mean estimate was moderate for emotional exhaustion (25.552), but clearly trending towards higher level, whereas depersonalization (10.383) and lack of personal accomplishment (30.652) showed higher burnouts levels. The proportion of emergency nurses suffering from high emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization, and low personal accomplishment was 40.5%, 44.3%, and 42.7%, respectively.

Conclusion: Burnout is detrimental to achieving high-quality healthcare services and causes a loss of productivity. It is high time for nursing leader and management personnel to identify appropriate measures to counteract burnout.

Keywords: Burnout; Emergency nurses; Nursing; Occupational; Stress.