Burnout and psychosocial risks in nurses. Prevalence and intervention

Abstract

This paper aims to give a comprehensive view of the psychosocial risks faced by nursing staff. It also focuses on the extent of burnout syndrome. It includes a review of the literature on this subject in the European Community and other countries. It is difficult to reach a consensus on the prevalence of burnout syndrome in nursing staff because it would be necessary among other things to unify criteria, in order to create self-evaluation reports, define the various types of services, consider cross-cultural differences, etc.
Since prevention plays a key role in reducing this phenomenon, the authors propose a number of intervention strategies for reducing the prevalence of burnout syndrome. These strategies would provide nursing staff with better quality working conditions and patients with better care.