Mediating effect of resilience on the relationship between perceived social support and burnout among Chinese palliative nurses

Abstract

Aims and objectives: To detect the mediating effect of resilience on the relationship between perceived social support and burnout in Chinese palliative nurses.

Background: Palliative nurses are a group that is vulnerable to burnout. Perceived social support may contribute to decreasing palliative nurses' burnout and facilitating their personal resilience, and resilience may be associated with lower levels of burnout. However, these relationships were unclear in the Chinese context.

Design: A cross-sectional design.

Methods: The STROBE guideline was performed to report this study. A mixed sampling method including convenience sampling and stratified sampling was used to recruit participants, and a total of 319 palliative nurses completed the Nursing Burnout Scale, the Perceived Social Support Scale and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale from May 2021 to September 2021. Influencing factors were primarily identified using independent-sample t tests and one-way ANOVA. Bootstrap method was used to detect the mediating effect of resilience.

Results: The level of burnout in palliative nurses (23.4 ± 7.68) was higher than that of general nurses in China. Education level, health condition and monthly income were influencing factors of burnout. Resilience was detected as a mediator in the relationships between perceived social support and dimensions of burnout.

Conclusions: Chinese palliative nurses experience a relatively high level of burnout, which may be influenced by several sociodemographic variables. Resilience could mediate the effect of perceived social support on the dimensions of burnout. Problem-oriented and palliative-tailored strategies should be developed to further address burnout in Chinese palliative nurses.

Relevance to clinical practice: Nurse managers and policy makers should support nurse ongoing education, adopt health-promoting interventions and optimise salary systems. In addition, perceived social support resources and resilience training programmes are also warranted.

Patient or public contribution: All participants were invited to complete the informed consent form and paper questionnaires. Human resource managers helped us collect some subjective data through the personnel management system. Nurse managers of palliative units conducted regular staff meetings to promote the data collection process.

Keywords: burnout; nurse practitioners; palliative care; resilience; social support.