AGE, NURSING EXPERIENCE, MARITAL STATUS AND CHILDREN AS RISK FACTORS FOR BURNOUT IN LITHUANIAN PROFESSIONAL NURSES

Abstract

Skilled healthcare providers often experience perceived stress, which may affect up to 71% of nurses, resulting in seriuos mental outcome such as burnout syndrome. Emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and poor personal accomplishment are three core components responsible for the development of burnout. In October–December 2024, a total of 148 female nurses were pooled for a cross-sectional study. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was used to assess the self-perceived professional burnout experienced by Lithuanian clinical nurses, respectively. This study highlighted a worrying proportion of nurses found to be at an increased risk of professional burnout syndrome after more than 50% of nurses had experienced the symptoms of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. More specifically, depersonalization as a core component of burnout was identified as having a higher rank in childless, single nurses (η²_p = 0.11, p < 0.001)  22–39 years of age (d = 0.4, p = 0.012), who had less than five years of nursing experience (η²_p = 0.04, p = 0.048). These variables must be taken into account when designing risk profiles for professional nurses. This would contribute to the implementation of health management programs or mindfulness-based cognitive therapies for the groups of nurses who are tending to full-blown occupational burnout, and in this fashion, some of its more severe mental disorders could be circumvented.