The relationship between burnout syndrome and empathy among nurses in emergency medical services

The aim of the research was to determine the prevalence of burnout syndrome and empathy among general nurses working in standard hospital settings (University Hospital Olomouc), and among general nurses working in emergency medical services, as well as to identify the differences in the degree of burnout syndrome and empathy between the two groups. Another objective was to establish whether there is a relationship between burnout syndrome and empathy in the groups of general nurses specified above. Questionnaires MBI-GS (Maslach Burnout Inventory) and IVE (Eysenck Impulsivity Inventory) were used to obtain the data. The research involved 175 respondents. A significantly higher rate of emotional exhaustion was found in hospital nurses (p = 0.001), while the degree of depersonalization was significantly higher in emergency medical services nurses (p = 0.001). The difference in the degree of personal accomplishment was not statistically significant. The relationship between burnout syndrome and empathy was confirmed. A significant weak positive correlation (r = 0.361; p = 0.001) between empathy and emotional exhaustion was found among general nurses working in emergency medical services.