Thesis

urnout and stress, in comparison to those nurses who believed that they had control over
their lives. According to this, increased levels of burnout were connected to increased levels
of work-related stress, and a decreased level of control related to the different aspects of the
nurse’s life. Also, increased levels of stress were related to decreased levels of control for the
nurses in this sample.
Murrells, Robinson & Griffiths (2008) conducted a research related to newly qualified nurses
and job satisfaction over a period of time in the nurses’ early career. More precisely, the
wanted to look at to which degree the nurses’ levels of satisfaction with their jobs differed at
six months into their career, at 18 months and at 3 years into their career. The researchers also
wanted to see to which degree the nurses’ specialization had an affect on their job satisfaction.
One of the major findings in this study was that the nurses were not happy with their salaries
when they took into consideration their responsibility level. However, the nurses were very
content with their nursing colleagues and the amount of social support they received from
them. The researchers other interesting findings were related to satisfaction connected to
management and prospects for development within the work. When it comes to the
satisfaction levels, generally the nurses’ satisfactions got stronger between six working
months and 18 working months, and then there was a decrease between 18 working months
and 3 years working as a nurse. According to Murrells et al. (op. cit.) this might mean that as
time went on for the nurses and more responsibilities emerged for them, the nurses’ outlook
on their work related to the management worsened and the management could no longer meet
the nurses’ expectations. When it comes to prospects for development for the nurses, they
reported quite low opportunities for development throughout all the three different working
time periods. Between six working months and 18 working months, there was a minor
increase in the opportunities for development scores among the nurses. From then on the
nurses reported decreasing opportunities for development scores. According to the
researchers, this had a negative effect on the nurses since they did not get an opportunity to
share ideas about their work and also they did not get required feedback of their work.
2.5.2. Burnout in emergency nurses
In the literature there has been some studies dealing with stress and burnout in different wards
and among nurses having different specialties. Research in this area has shown that burnout