Nurse's Burnout Research Throughout the Past 10 Years in Korea

Abstract

Purpose: This study was done to identify the current status of burnout research on Korean nurses and to suggest the directions for future research. Method: Fifty two articles between 1998 and 2007 were selected using the key words such as Nurse and from the database (RISS4U et al.). Results: 77.9% of studies were master's theses unpublished in the nursing journals. All studies were cross-sectional and therefore did not allow casual inference. Hospital nurses were the most common subjects (21 studies). The most frequently used burnout measurement instrument was the Burnout Measure, while the Maslach Burnout Inventory was used in only 6 studies. 55.7% of studies reported the average burnout score as higher than the middle level. Among individual factors, variables significantly correlated to burnout were age, position, work experience, coping, and personality. Some of job factors including shift work, workloads, job stress, and organizational commitment were also significantly related to burnout. There was very little discussion about the influence of organizational factors analyzed by unit or institution level. Conclusion: In Korea, the next phase of nurse burnout research needs to consider the measurement tool selection for the international comparison and longitudinal design to find more specific causal relationships.