Niveles de burnout y de exposición a conflicto ético de los profesionales de enfermería de cuidados intensivos◊

Background

Nursing professionals working in intensive care units (ICU) are at high risk of developing negative emotional responses as well as emotional and spiritual problems related to ethical issues. The design of effective strategies that improve these aspects is determined by knowing the levels of burnout and ethical conflict of these professionals, as well as the influence that the practice environment might have on them.

Objectives

To analyze the relationship between levels of burnout, the exposure to ethical conflicts and the perception of the practice environment among themselves and with sociodemographic variables of the different intensive care nursing professionals.

Methods

Descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional, observational study in an ICU of a tertiary level university hospital. The level of burnout was evaluated with the Maslach Burnout Inventory Human Services Survey scale; the level of ethical conflict with the Ethical Conflict Questionnaire for Nurses; and the perception of the environment with the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed. The association between categorical variables was analyzed using Fisher's exact chi-square test (χ²)

Results

31 nurses and 8 nursing assistants were evaluated, which meant a participation rate of 82.93%. 31.10% of the nursing professionals presented signs of burnout, 14.89% considered that they work in an unfavorable environment and 87.23% presented a medium-high index of exposure to ethical conflict.

The educational level (χ² = 11.084, P = .011) and the professional category (χ² = 5.007, P = .025) influenced the level of burnout: nursing assistants presented higher levels of this.

When comparing the level of burnout with the environment and the index of ethical conflict, there were no statistically significant differences.

Conclusions

The absence of association found in the study between burnout and ethical conflict with the perception of the practice environment suggests that personal factors may influence its development.