Relationship of nurses’ resiliency and burnout during the COVID-19 outbreak in selected hospitals of Hilla city in Babylon Province of Iraq in 2021

 Leila Sayadi^*, Zeinab jawad Kadhim

Background: Nurses are exposed to a variety of problems, such as fear of getting sick, fear of transmitting the disease to the family, lack of beds and resources during the COVID- 19 pandemic, which can lead to mental health problems as well as burnout. However, the incidence of these problems in nurses also depends on their resilience. Numerous studies have been conducted in different countries on the resilience and burnout of nurses and the relationship between these two concepts. But, resilience is related to individual, genetic, social and environmental factors and can vary between nurses in different populations. Given that no study has been conducted in Iraq, this study was conducted to determine the relationship between resilience and burnout of nurses during the outbreak of COVID-19 in selected hospitals in the city of Hilla in Babil province in 2021.

Methodology: In this cross-sectional study, 328 nurses from 4 hospitals of Hilla city in Babylon Province of Iraq (Al hilla teaching hospital, Morgan, Imam Sadiq and Alnoor) entered. A proportion of nurses entered the study from each hospital by convenience sampling. After obtaining permission to conduct research and controlling the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the researcher provided questionnaires related to demographic information, resilience, burnout as well as anxiety, stress and depression to the participating nurses to complete. All questionnaires were in Arabic. The collected data entered into SPSS software version 16 and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics at a significance level of 0.05.

Results: The results showed that the mean age of the nurses was 26.62 years; the majority of them (58.5%) were female. Most of these nurses had nursing diploma. Nurses average work experience was 4.83 (6.958). The mean number of months they cared for patients with COVID-19 was 10.52 (4.061). The mean total resilience score of participating nurses was 68.05 (17.004). The majority of them (77.4%) had medium burnout. 69.2% of nurses had medium personal burnout, 70.1% had medium work-related burnout, and 60.7% had medium client-related burnout. There was only a significant inverse relationship between depression (r =-0.273), anxiety (r=-0.124), stress (r=-0.180) and resilience.  There was no significant relationship between burnout and nurses' resilience.

Conclusion and recommendation: Due to the existence of burnout and its relationship with stress, depression and anxiety in some nurses caring for patients with COVID-19, health policy makers and nursing managers need to adopt strategies based on evidence and scientific studies to reduce burnout, improve mental health and promote quality of patient care. Reducing the workload of nurses by adjusting work shifts, reducing job-related stress, and creating a healthy work environment may prevent or reduce burnout. These strategies can also increase nurses' resilience.

Key Words: Resiliency, Burnout, Nurse, COVID-19, Iraq