Correlation between Psychological Capital and Occupational Burnout in Nurses

Aims: The environment surrounding human includes physical, social, and psychological factors, each of which plays an important role in health status of human. The studies have shown that several psychological factors may play role in occupational burnout among the nurses. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between psychological capital and occupational burnout in nurses. Instruments & Methods: The statistical population of the present descriptive correlational study comprised of employed nurses in hospitals affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, who were totally 4,000 participants selected based on the Cochran’s formula for sample size as 351 respondents, using stratified random sampling method in 2015-2016. The research tools included Luthans et al.’s psychological capital questionnaire and Maslach burnout inventory. The data analysis was performed, using statistical SPSS 19 software by stepwise regression, Pearson’s correlation coefficients, and ANOVA test. Findings: There was an inverse significant correlation among psychological capital (r=-0.179; p<0.05) and resiliency (r=-0.318; p<0.05) with occupational burnout, while self-efficacy, hope, positive attitude- optimism were not significantly related to occupational burnout. Accordingly, at the first step, resiliency interprets 10.1% of variance of occupational burnout (p<0.01). Therefore, regression can be extended to statistical population. Beta coefficient reduced occupational burnout up to 0.318 units against 1 unit increase in resiliency (p=0.001). Conclusion: There is an inverse correlation between psychological capital and occupational burnout in nurses. However, there is no correlation between self-efficacy, hope, positive attitudeoptimism of psychological capital with occupational burnout.