Towards Better Understanding of the Harmful Impact of Hindrance and Challenge Stressors on Job Burnout of Nurses. A One-Year Cross-Lagged Study on Mediation Role of Work-Family Conflict

The mediation role of work–family conflict (WFC) in job demands – job burnout link is well documented, also in group of nurses. It is still unclear, however, which job demands are particularly conducive to WFC and job burnout. Moreover the mediational effect of WFC was tested mainly in cross-sectional studies that were conducted in countries of North America and Western Europe. Drawing on the Job Demands-Resources and the Effort-Recovery models, this one-year cross-lagged study investigates the effects of five types of job demands related to challenge and hindrance stressors on job burnout (measured with exhaustion and disengagement from work) as well as the mediational role of WFC in Polish nurses. Job demands included emotional, cognitive demands, and demands for hiding emotions (as challenge stressors) as well as quantitative demands and work pace (as hindrance stressors). Data were collected among 516 nurses. Structural equation modelling (SEM) showed that hindrance stressors (T1) are predictor of higher job burnout (T2). The positive role of challenge stressors (T1) were not supported. Only emotional demands were associated with exhaustion but the direction of the relation was opposite than expected. WFC (T1) mediated the harmful effect of the two hindrance stressors and emotional demands on disengagement from work (but not on exhaustion). Cognitive demands and demands for hiding emotions were not related to negative outcomes. The obtained results shed light on the role of the challenge-hindrance stressors and WFI in development of job burnout. The implications for theory and research on the mental health of nurses are discussed.