Correlations of burnout and healthcare safety perceptions among Italian Nurses

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Job burnout is the psychosocial judgement of the physical and psychological tiredness result to the prolongation emotional pressure associated to the job. The World Health Organization (WHO) also promotes care safety culture and awareness, by publishing the “Multi-professional Patient Safety Curriculum Guide” to guarantee patient safety education in universities, schools and professional institutions in the dental, medical, obstetric, nursing and pharmaceutical sectors. Hence, this study highlights correlations existed between burnout levels and patient safety perceptions among Italian nurses who work in different contexts. METHOD: Data were collected in July and August 2019. Burnout was assessed by the Italian version of the 22-item Maslach Burnout Inventory Human Service Survey. The patient safety perception was assessed to the “Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture” (HSOPSC) questionnaire. RESULTS: 300 Italian nurses voluntary participated in this study. Questionnaire were administered by Google Forms application, were all Italian nurses could voluntary participate. CONCLUSION: Emotional Exhaustion (EE) is the most representative dimension of burnout. This outcome becomes more acute with greater age and seniority in the position, due to the stress and monotony encountered and/or job dissatisfaction. Moreover, our results showed strong and moderate values on different fields of the HSOPSC questionnaire. (www.actabiomedica.it)