On the relationship between safety climate and occupational burnout in healthcare organizations

The important concepts of safety climate and occupational burnout have been widely addressed by healthcare professionals. However, few researchers conducted comprehensive and detailed studies to investigate the relationship between safety climate and burnout, especially in healthcare organizations. The purpose of the study is therefore to investigate and establish a relationship between safety climate and occupational burnout. In addition, the relationship between job and socio-demographic characteristics (JSDC) with both safety climate and burnout is examined. In the present study a cross-sectional design was conducted using questionnaires to measure safety climate, occupational burnout and JSDC of nurses while descriptive, inferential statistics, path analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) were applied to test the relationships between the three parameters. The findings show a significant relationship between safety climate and unit type, job satisfaction, job interest, and stress. Likewise, there is a strong relationship between the lack of personal accomplishment and job satisfaction, job interest and stress. Also, safety climate has a strong correlation with both the frequency and the severity of occupational burnout dimensions. The results of the SEM also support a negative correlation between occupational burnout and safety climate, where a decrease in the latter is associated with an increase in the former.