Interventions to reduce nurses' burnout: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Aim

To evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to reduce nurses' burnout.

Design

A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Methods

The research was carried out using the following databases: MEDLINE, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, ULAKBİM Turkish National Database, Science Direct, and Web of Science. The study selection, quality assessments, and data extractions of the included studies were carried out by the researchers independently. The PRISMA checklist was used to assure the quality and transparency of the report. The risk of bias of the included studies was evaluated using the Cochrane Collaboration tool. The meta-analysis was performed using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) 3.0 software.

Results

A total of 19 studies including 1139 nurses were included in the study. Of these, only 13 were included in the meta-analysis, as six contained incomplete data. Interventions aimed at reducing burnout in nurses were mostly person-directed interventions. The meta-analysis revealed that attempts to reduce burnout had a small effect on nurses' emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and a moderate effect on their personal accomplishment.

Conclusions

Interventions are more effective at preventing the sense of personal accomplishment of nurses from decreasing. Evidence in the literature on organization-directed interventions and combined interventions to reduce burnout in nurses is limited. Person-directed interventions are effective at low and medium levels. In future studies, it will be more effective to implement combined interventions including both person-directed and organization-directed interventions to reduce the burnout of nurses.