Tools to Face Burnout in Nursing: Social Support, Resilience and Coping Strategies.

Objectives: To establish the differences in social support, resilience, coping, and three burnout dimensions (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment) among special units nursing and nursing staff of others hospital services; as well as to determine psychological variables that predict burnout in these professionals.

Method: Correlational and cross-sectorial study. A sample of 133 nursing professionals from University Hospital of Fuenlabrada (Madrid) took part in the study, of whom 61 worked in special units and 72 in wards. Instruments: Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS), Social Support Subscale, 10-Item CD-RISC (resilience), Brief-Cope (coping), and sociodemographic variables.

Results: No differences were found in any assessed psychological variables as regards hospital service worked in. Social support, resilience and coping strategies determined three burnout dimensions: social support (β = -0.21, support coping (β = -0.22) and disengagement coping (β = 0.22) predicted emotional exhaustion; resilience (V = -0.22) and disengagement coping (β = 0.30) predicted depersonalization; and engagement coping (β = -0.55) predicted reduce personal accomplishment.

Conclusions: Differences in burnout, social support, resilience and coping strategies are not determined by hospital service. Social support, resilience, engagement coping, and support coping (adaptives) constitute three tools to face burnout in nursing. These tools could be developed by specific programs from universities and health institutions to improve nursing clinical practice.