Thesis

Nemcek & James (2007) conducted a study which wanted to investigate nurses opinions
about factors related to their working environment and health to be able to see how these were
connected to each other and to life satisfaction as well. This research showed that life
satisfaction could be positively related to nurse’s satisfaction with their career, and nurse’s
perception of meaningful work. This study showed evidence of the fact that if the nurses felt
pride for doing a good job and if they had support at their workplace then their levels of life
satisfaction were also increased. Thus, both personal factors and work-related factors
contributed to elevated levels of life satisfaction in this sample of nurses. Lyubomirsky, King
& Diener (2005) found for example that increased levels of life satisfaction were connected to
low levels of job dissatisfaction at work. Life satisfaction was also connected to improved
levels of retention and higher levels of productivity.
When it comes to the field of nurses’ burnout related to life satisfaction, the literature and
research is very scarce. This dissertation aims at comparing levels of life satisfaction between
the Hungarian and Swedish emergency nurses and to connect life satisfaction to burnout.
Thus, this dissertation is contributing to the limited research done in the field of burnout
connected to life satisfaction, and it is offering a new angle by looking more specifically into
the life satisfaction of Swedish and Hungarian emergency nurses, and their reported burnout
in connection to this.
2.8. BURNOUT AND PERSONALITY
According to Maslach (1982) the burnout syndrome does not take place for everybody all the
time. There are obvious individual differences in the outline of burnout and these individual
differences seem to be connected to differences in personality among people. The personality
is here referred to as the mental, emotional, and social aspects that make up the person itself.
A person’s interpersonal approach, how she is handling problems, how she is expressing and
controlling her emotions, and a person’s idea of herself are all very important facets of
personality which have great importance for the development of burnout.
Also according to Brewer & Shapard (2004) the individual factors can be linked to burnout by
specific personality characteristics. Suggested personality characteristics have for example
been introversion and extroversion, where people who are introverted are more prone to