Thesis

single. Being a widowed means that you have lost a beloved partner (after probably a number
of years together) and the loneliness after losing a loved one is probably a different kind of
loneliness a single nurse might feel. The fact that married nurses scored the lowest on burnout
in the present study is in accordance with previous research and thus this study have
confirmed those results (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993; Maslach, 1982). However, the fact that
Martini et al. (2006) and Gulalp et al. (2008) found that (among other demographic variables)
marital status could not be related to burnout, still shows the inconsistencies in the research
results in connection to marital status and burnout. It is therefore important to conduct more
research in this area to diminish the inconsistencies.
When exploring the issue of the number of children a nurse has, it was shown that the
Swedish nurses had more children than the Hungarian nurses. Again, it is important to keep in
mind the age differences between the two samples and higher number of children for the
Swedish nurses could have been attained due to the Swedish nurses being older. Once again it
makes the interpretation of the results very difficult and a less age gap between the samples
would have made comparisons more accurate. In connection to burnout, it was shown that the
number of children a nurse had did not have a significant influence on burnout in the present
study. In previous studies, Martini et al. (2006) and Gulalp et al. (2008) have found that
burnout could not be related to having children or to the number of children in nurses. Thus,
since the present study also failed to find a relationship between number of children and
burnout, it can confirm the findings of previous research in connection to burnout and having
children in nurses. In contrast to this other studies have found a connection between burnout
and having children, where Beaver et al. (1986) found that the more children a nurse had, the
higher her level of emotional exhaustion would be. Maslach (1982) on the other hand found
that having no children could be associated with an increased risk of burnout. Maslach’s (op.
cit.) finding was the assumption of this study (having no children would result in increased
burnout) and even though it was not confirmed in this study it does show that such a
relationship might have existed. It is interesting to note that two such different facts like the
more children a nurse have and having no children at all may contribute to burnout. One
might think that it should be either or contributing to burnout and not both. The reason why
having no children was chosen in this study to possibly be related to burnout was that even
though children require a lot of attention and can be stressful to look after in many ways
(possibly why an association between the more children a nurse have and burnout can be
found in previous research) there is a very strong bonding with ones children and the stress in