The Effect of Emotional Intelligence and Job Stress on Burnout: A Structural Equation Model among Hospital Nurses

Abstract

The Occupational burnout is considered as one of the most important problems that have numerous adverse effects on nurses' job. Various personal, psychological and social factors are effective in occupational burnout. Therefore, the goal of this study was to find out the relationship between emotional intelligence and job stress with occupational burnout of nurses working in public hospitals of Kerman. This descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study, was conducted on 300 nurses working in Kerman hospitals who selected randomly by stratified method. Organizational and demographic questionnaire and occupational burnout, emotional intelligence and job stress questionnaires have used. Structural and confirmatory factor analysis models were used to measure the model of the study. Emotional intelligence and job stress affect occupational burnout. In addition, there were meaningful and negative relationships between emotional intelligence and job stress (P<0.001) and increasing emotional intelligence results in decreasing job stress. Based on the findings and the significance of occupational burnout and its adverse effects on nurses, one of the plans for decreasing the syndrome of occupational burnout in nurses could be concentration on improvement of psycho-personal factors of job environments including emotional intelligence and job stress.