Thesis

prone to burnout (like for example teachers) and to look at the situation with psychological
immunity in those, in connection to burnout.
Demographic variables have been shown in previous research to have a significant effect on
burnout. The fact that the present study only could show a significant effect between
nationality and burnout, and marital status and burnout is somewhat surprising. There have
been inconsistencies in the previous research; however a large amount of the previous
research has found a connection between the demographic variables and burnout. Thus, this
study stands out somewhat with its results since the majority of the demographic variables
showed not to have an effect on burnout. The reasons lying behind these results is difficult to
say but to its defense it can be mentioned that some studies have found similar results. An
issue which must be raised here is the fact that there were unfortunately big differences
between the two samples in connection to age. The fact that the Swedish nurses turned out to
be older than the Hungarian nurses had possibly an effect on variables like number of
children, marital status, and years working as a nurse. Since the Swedish nurses were older it
was no surprise that they had more children, were married to a higher degree, or had worked
for a longer time as a nurse. The comparisons between the two samples in these areas should
thus be made with caution and they must be kept in mind when reading this study. The
reasons for these differences can only be speculated about, but maybe in Sweden people who
educate themselves to become nurses only start working as an actual nurse later in life. Maybe
women in Sweden choose to start educating themselves to become a nurse much later in life
than in Hungary. Maybe in Hungary the difficult situation of the nurses makes them leave
their profession at a certain (older) age, leaving only younger nurses within the health care
system and older nurses working outside their professions. However, some interesting results
which were found were that Swedish nationality and being married attained the lowest
burnout scores. Married nurses have been shown in previous research as well to score lower
on burnout but it would be interesting to see if another comparison between Hungary and
Sweden would show that Swedish nationality would come out as a strong protective factor
against burnout.
As a summary it can be said that conducting research in the area of burnout is very interesting
at the same time as it is a challenge. There has been extensive research conducted in this area
and remains still today in focus for any researchers, where the majority of the research has
looked at burnout in one country, at one specific ward, and with one specific group of health