Comparison of professional quality of life and job burnout in nurses working in emergency and special corona departments with other departments

Nurses working in COVID-19 emergency and intensive care units may experience increased stress due to the special working environments. This stress can lead to burnout and negatively impact their quality of life. This study aimed to compare the quality of professional life (QPL) and job burnout among nurses working in COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 wards in Birjand teaching hospitals.

This descriptive-analytical study involved 182 nurses working in COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 wards at teaching hospitals in Birjand. The number of nurses from the two categories of wards was proportional, with 91 nurses from the COVID-19 wards and 91 nurses from non-COVID-19 wards. A demographics form, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and the Walton Quality of Work Life Questionnaire were used to collect data. The data were analyzed in SPSS 26 software using independent t-test, chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U test, and analysis of variance. The significance level was set to P < 0.05.

Of the 182 nurses studied, 91 (50%) worked in COVID-19 wards. There was a statistically significant difference in the mean QPL score between nurses in the COVID-19 (81.46 ± 17.21) and non-COVID-19 wards (87.89 ± 17) (P=0.02). There was also a statistically significant difference in the mean job burnout score between nurses in the COVID-19 (78.32 ± 17.21) and non-COVID-19 wards (87.46 ± 17.21) (P=0.02). Among the components of job burnout, there was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores for lack of achievement (P ≤ 0.001) and depersonalization (P ≤ 0.001) among nurses working in the COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 wards.

A significant disparity exists between nurses in COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 wards concerning the QPL and job burnout. It is recommended that administrators implement strategies to mitigate nurses' job burnout and enhance their QPL, such as conducting psychotherapy sessions and periodically transferring nurses from high-stress units to other wards.