Experiencing professional strains of nurses, radiation engineers and physicians working at the Institute of Oncology in Ljubljana

Abstract

Background. Since 1974 the term burnout is used in psychology. Burnout describes the end result of stress and has been described by Maslach comprising three basic components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and low personal accomplishment. In this paper we would like to describe some aspects of burnout experiences of the employees of the Institute of Oncology in Ljubljana.

Subjects and methods. We used Questionnaire of professional stress, created by Žunter Nagy and Kocmur. In our research 137 health workers from four professional groups participated: physicians, graduated nurses, nurses and radiation engineers, representing 38% of all employees.

Results. We found out that in the experience the professional stressof all four professional groups is relatively equalized. The most prominent feelings are of fatigue, irritability and work overload. There were no signs of depersonalization - as described by Maslach - reported in our group. In nurses and in radiation engineers a distress is significantly more often displayed due to poorer personal income and poorer material status. Nurses reported significantly more often the intention to change work position (51%), institution (57%) or job (47%).

Conclusions. Workstress impacts on the experience and on the thought patterns in those participating in the study. We can describe those signs as burnout signs. However, there are more new questions opening in the future as well as the need to a longitudinal approach to the research of this more and more prominent field.