Journal of Disease and Global Health

Introduction: Burnout is usually defined as a state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion. Research indicates that stress and burnout can not only affect physical and mental health but behavior as well.

Aim: Of the present study is to assess burnout and its possible relation with mental health and aggression in nursing personnel.

Methods: In this cross sectional study 156 nurses were participated. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The questionnaire contained questions for demographic data, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) and the Aggression Questionnaire (AQ). Statistical analysis performed with the Statistical package for Social Sciences, SPSS 21.

Results: The demographic structure of the sample was: 87.20% women, 54.50% married and the 67.10% had a higher education degree. The mean of age was 38.00± 8.84 and the mean of working years was 16.50±8.76. “Depersonalization” and “Personal Accomplishment” are statistically correlated (p<0.05) with “Physical Aggression”, “Anger” and “Hostility” and also statistical significant correlations were found between “Depersonalization” and “Somatization” (R=0.256, p=0.002), and between “Depersonalization” and “Anxiety” (R=0.220, p=0.008). But “Emotional Exhaustion” appears to be the most important subscale of MBI because is statistically positive correlated with all the subscales of GHQ-28, “Somatization” (R=0.589, p < 0.001), “Anxiety” (R=0.471, p < 0.001), “Social Dysfunction” (R=0.409, p < 0.001), and finally “Depression” (R=0.269, p=0.001).

Conclusion: Burnout is strongly correlated with mental health status and aggressive behavior of nursing staff. The negative effects of burnout at an individual group or at an organizational level should lead researchers in efforts to find the specific factors that are associated with the syndrome and seem to affect its occurrence.