Burnout, Empathy, and Sense of Coherence in Nurses of Selected Specializations

<ns3:p>The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between professional burnout, empathy, and sense of coherence in internal medicine nurses and oncology nurses, and what the differences are in this regard between people in these professional groups.The study included a group of 120 nurses, including 60 internal medicine nurses and 60 oncology nurses, whose age ranged from 25 to 55 years, and whose mean value did not differ significantly between professional groups - being 34 and 36 years, respectively. The study used the author's socio-demogrphic questionnaire, the Maslach Burnout Questionnaire (MBI), the Antonovsky Life Orientation Questionnaire (SOC-29) and the Wilczek-Rużyczka EEP Questionnaire.For the subjects as a whole, a concordant association of sense of coherence with the level of empathy was shown, and this was true for all analyzed dimensions of these variables, which was reflected in similar - opposite - associations of all dimensions of these variables with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. It was found that internal medicine nurses were characterized, compared to oncology nurses, by higher levels of the overall coherence score, higher levels of resourcefulness and meaningfulness, and lower emotional, cognitive and overall empathy scores. The differences between the two professional groups were statistically significant.The demonstrated opposing relationships of professional burnout with empathy and sense of coherence, with burnout increasing with the number of years worked, indicates the validity of implementing preventive measures through, among other things, training in the development of empathy and sense of coherence.</ns3:p>