The effect of workload and burnout perception on the life satisfaction of nurses working in surgical units

The research was conducted descriptively to determine the effect of workload and burnout perception on life satisfaction of nurses working in surgical units. The research population consisted of nurses working in the surgical unit of a training and research hospital between March 2024 and May 2024, and the sample consisted of 188 nurses who met the criteria after calculation with G-power (version 3.1). Before the research, necessary permissions were obtained from the institution where the research was conducted and Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa Social and Human Sciences Ethics Committee, as well as from the authors who adapted the scales into Turkish. Data were collected using the "Personal Information Form", "Workload Scale", "Maslach Burnout Scale", "Life Satisfaction Scale" and by face-to-face interview method. The findings obtained in the study were evaluated at 95% confidence interval and significance below p<0.05. Statistical calculations were made with SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) version 26 program and Amos 24 programs (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). The average age of surgical nurses is 32.56±7.51 years, 90% are women, 56% live with their spouses and/or spouses and children, 90% have a nuclear family structure, 93% have a bachelor's degree or higher. It was determined that 66% of them stated their income as medium. In addition, 75% of them work 45 hours or more per week, 69% have more than 5 years of professional experience, 56% care for more than 10 patients per day, 88% work on a shift system, 21% have a professional experience of more than 5 years. It was determined that they had a chronic disease, 3% had a mental problem, 23% smoked, 10% consumed alcohol, and 47% did not receive any financial or moral support. The surgical nurses' mean scores on the Workload Scale and Life Satisfaction Scale were 40.78±6.51 and 11.72±3.98, respectively. The mean scores of the "emotional exhaustion", "depersonalization" and "personal accomplishment" subscales of the Maslach Burnout Scale were 23.60±7.44, 8.18±4.62 and 21.22±4.16, respectively. Many factors have been found to influence workload, perception of burnout, and life satisfaction. Professional workload causes emotional exhaustion; emotional exhaustion reduces life satisfaction and causes depersonalization; However, despite the decrease in nurses' life satisfaction, it was found to have no effect on depersonalization in the profession.