WORK STRESS AS CONDITION OF EMOTIONAL EXH AUSTION AND DEPERSONALIZATION WITHIN THE BURNOUT PROCESS

In addition to personality factors work stress and work load play an i mportant role in the development of burnout. To date this role has not been systematically analysed. New models about the burnout process (e . g. Leiter, 1993) postulate that work stress triggers physical and em otional exhaustion and that emotional exhaustion mediates work stress in relation to the depersonalization in the interaction with the patie nts. In the research field of general hospitals especially on intensiv e care un its a high degree of burnout and work stress had been found. Our analysis with a sample of 482 nurses-working in different hospita l units-could not completely confirm the influence of all 24 theoretic ally established and field validated factors of work demands on the mo st important burnout components, emotional exhaustion and depersonaliz ation. We found confirmation for correlations of work stress factors w ith emotional exhaustion, and some evidence for the mediating effect o f emotional exhaustion on depersonalization. However, central are not the well known physical and psychomental stress factors, but also the social and interactional stressors in nursing. Statistical analyses in which we compared nurses working in different hospital units (intensi ve care, internal medicine, surgery and gynecology units) could nor co nfirm the assumption of higher burnout rates or the higher work stress expected for nurses working on intensive care units.