Burnout and Secondary Traumatic Stress in Service and Intensive Care Nurses: A Cross-Sectional Study Using the ProQOL Scale
Burnout and STS in Service and ICU Nurses
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.71350/ajaic.30Keywords:
Professional Quality of Life, Burnout, Secondary Traumatic Stress, Compassion Satisfaction, Nurses, Intensive Care UnitsAbstract
Background: Professional quality of life (ProQOL) reflects both positive and negative dimensions of helping professions and includes compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. Occupational psychological burden among nurses may vary according to clinical working environment and organizational factors. This study aimed to compare ProQOL levels between service nurses and intensive care unit (ICU) nurses using the Turkish version of the ProQOL.
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional comparative study included 100 nurses working in internal medicine wards, surgical wards, and anesthesia intensive care units of a tertiary care hospital. Service nurses consisted of nurses working in internal medicine and surgical wards, whereas ICU nurses consisted of nurses working in anesthesia intensive care units. Professional quality of life was assessed using the Turkish version of the ProQOL scale. Independent samples t-tests were performed for unadjusted comparisons, and multivariate linear regression analyses were used to evaluate the independent association between working unit and ProQOL outcomes after adjustment for demographic and occupational variables.
Results: In unadjusted analyses, service nurses demonstrated significantly higher Compassion Satisfaction, burnout and secondary traumatic stress compared with ICU nurses (p < 0.05 for all comparisons). After multivariate adjustment, working in service units was no longer independently associated with Compassion Satisfaction scores (p = 0.117). However, service unit employment remained independently associated with higher Burnout (β = 5.68, 95% CI: 2.06–9.31, p = 0.002) and higher Secondary Traumatic Stress scores (β = 4.83, 95% CI: 1.03–8.63, p = 0.013). The ProQOL scale demonstrated acceptable internal consistency across all subscales.
Conclusion: Service nurses demonstrated higher burnout and secondary traumatic stress levels compared with ICU nurses after adjustment for potential confounding variables, whereas compassion satisfaction did not differ significantly between groups. These findings suggest that professional quality of life among nurses may be influenced not only by clinical working environment but also by broader organizational and psychosocial factors.
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