Nurse Burnout and Patient Outcomes

Purpose:

: This study examined the effect of nurse burnout and patient outcomes.

Methods:

 This study was cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 2,083 nurses across 92 community hospitals in Thailand. Nurse burnout was measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Service Scale. Patient outcomes were measured by five items assessing quality of care, medication errors, confidence that patients can manage their own care after hospital discharge, infection, and falling. Logistic regression was used for the analysis.

Results:

 The results of study showed that higher nurse burnout was associated with higher report of fair to poor care quality, not confident that patients can manage their own care after hospital discharge, medication errors, infection, and falling.  

Conclusion: Results from this study provide confirmation for the association between burnout and patient outcomes. Reducing nurse burnout is a promising strategy to help improve patient outcomes.