Thesis

urnout. When it comes to mental health, not having support, high workload, and working at
the ward for only a short time were all affecting mental health in a negative way and resulted
in poorer mental health for the nurses in this sample. As part of the international project,
Chang et al. (op. cit.) also looked at the difference between newly graduated nurses and nurses
with more working experience in Australian nurses. The researchers found that newly
graduated nurses experienced higher role stress than other nurses. These findings have also
been reported by Chang & Hancock (2003), and Charnley (1999), where the first ones have
reported higher role ambiguity among newly graduated nurses which might be the reason why
these nurses report higher levels of role stress.
Garrosa et al. (2006) conducted a research where they wanted to look at to what extent socio-
demographic variables, work related variables, and personality (more specifically hardiness)
could be connected to burnout. The researchers wanted to see each of these factors
associations with the three dimensions of the burnout syndrome, emotional exhaustion,
depersonalization and lack of personal accomplishment. Their study population was 473
nurses from three different hospitals in Spain. The reason why the researchers were interested
in looking at the socio-demographic variables, the work related variables, and personality was
that according to them burnout has mainly been connected to work related factors or work
stressors (see for example Coffey, 1999; Jamal & Baba, 2000; Ogus, 1992; Sundin,
Hochwälder, Bildt & Lisspers, 2006; Van Wijk, 1997). Garrosa et al. (2006) found in their
study that younger nurses had higher levels of burnout than nurses that were older than 30 or
40 years. Brewer & Shapard (2004) have also reported similar findings in their meta-analysis,
about age and work experience. Further, Garrosa et al. (2006) showed the main effects of
work stressors after the personality variable and the socio-demographic variables were taken
into consideration. Approximately 20% of the three dimensions of the burnout were explained
by the work stressors. It was the emotional exhaustion dimension, with 26%, which had the
main amount of explained variance. Other researchers have also found emotional exhaustion
to be related to work stress factors (see for example Cherniss, 1980, in Garrosa, Moreno-
Jimenez Liang & Gonzalez, 2006; Lindblom, Linton, Fedeli & Bryngelsson, 2006; Maslach &
Jackson, 1981; Posig & Kickul, 2003). Emotional exhaustion and depersonalization have also
been significantly related to workload and negative interactions; however pain and death have
been related in a negative way to the above mentioned two dimensions of burnout. Piko
(2006) and Posig & Kickul (2003) have for example also reported the important connection
between negative interactions and burnout. Garrosa et al. (2006) stated that when looking at