Publication:

Prevalence of burnout among nurses practicing in the surgical departments of a Moroccan university hospital

Background The aim of our study is to evaluate the prevalence of burnout among nurses practicing in the surgical units of a Moroccan university hospital.

Methods This is a qualitative cross-sectional observational study Conducted from July 2017 to December 2017 among nurses working in the 12 surgical units of the hospital. Nurses provided a self-administered questionnaire with socio-demographic and burnout data using the Maslach burnout inventory.

Results Among 183 nursing nurses, 130 (82 women/48 men) completed the questionnaires (71%). The prevalence of burnout across all grades was 86.2% (low level: 33.8 %, moderate level: 46.2%, high level: 6.2%). High emotional exhaustion was noted among 95 nurses (73.1%), a high level of depersonalization among 75 nurses (57.7%) and a low level of personal accomplishment among 12 nurses (9.2%). High emotional exhaustion and major depersonalization were observed together in 61 nurses (46.9%). Women appeared more likely to burnout (p=0.03). Nurses working in visceral surgical emergency unit, neurosurgery unit and traumatology orthopedics unit seemed to be more affected by emotional exhaustion (p=0.002).

Conclusions The prevalence of burnout among surgical nurses is worrying. Surgical nurses whose activity is much more related to emergencies are the most exposed. A preventive and therapeutic strategy is needed to reduce the extent of burnout.