The Burn-out Syndrome of the Doctors and Nurses working in the Emergency department

종합병원 응급실 의사와 간호사의 탈진(burn-out) 요인에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study was to find the factors affecting the bum out syndrome and its degree in terms of personal, organizational and clients characteristics, and then to find the ways to reduce or eliminate those factors. The 228 doctors and the nurses who worked at the emergency departments in 6 general hospitals with more than 700 beds in Seoul were surveyed from April 15, 2002 for 15 days. A structured self-recording questionnaire was used; the t-test and ANOVA was used to analyse the median difference between the occupation, and multiple regression was employed to find the factors affecting the bum-out syndrome. The summary of this research analysis is as follows : First, of several variables, the highest frequency of the burn-out was the emotional burn-out followed by lack in personal touch toward the patients, decrease in sense of personal achievement. These results indicate that the doctors and nurses in emergency departments experience higher degree of burn-out than the social workers and the nurses who work at other departments in heath care environment as other studies revealed. Second, the analysis of the total burn-out factors showed the lower self respect, younger age, heavier work load, higher dissatisfaction rate toward remuneration and not-so-smooth relationship with the patients and their relatives the higher burn out rate. These variables explained 54% of the total variables. Third, the nurses experienced more burn-out syndrome than the doctors. The degree of self-respect, work pattern, relationship with the clients, age and remuneration were the causes of the burn-out. The doctors recorded lack in personal touch toward the patients more, while the nurses more to emotional exhaustion. The limitations of this research are the subjective answers of the respondents to certain questions and differences in sample numbers of each hospital in which some reservation can be exercised in explaining statistical significance of the data, and generalizing the conclusion. Despite of its limitation, this research has its own merit as an unpreceded research in this field, and provision of the basic materials to prevent and find causes of the burn-out syndrome among the doctors and nurses in the emergency departments.