Thesis

When it comes to the area of connecting burnout to social support, this dissertation is looking
at the levels of social support in Hungarian and Swedish emergency nurses and is then
looking at this in connection to burnout. Prior research in connection to this topic has not been
found and thus this dissertation is contributing to the gap in the literature and it is also
contributing with important nation-based information in the research field of social support
and burnout.
2.10. BURNOUT AND DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES
According to Brewer & Shapard (2004) the demographic factors have been reported in
connection to burnout at several occasions. Cordes & Dougherty (1993) have shown that
people who are married reported less burnout than single people. Jackson (1993) has
established considerable differences in burnout levels connected to demographic factors such
as gender, age, and marital status; while other researchers have not found any connection
between demographic factors and burnout (see for example Dillon & Tanner, 1995; Friedman
& Farber, 1992).
Brewer & Shapard (2004) stated that, considerable researches have brought up age or years of
experience as having an effect on burnout. Some researches have not found any relationships
between age or years of experience and burnout, while other studies have found such
relationships (see for example Konert, in Brewer & Shapard, 1997; Laub, 1998, in Brewer &
Shapard, 2004). According to Maslach et al. (2001) demographic variables have been
extensively studied in relation to burnout research. Among all the demographic variables
which have been looked into, age is the variable which most of the researchers have been able
to continuously connect to burnout. Looking at younger nurses, burnout has been shown to be
higher in that age group than for nurses who are older than 30 or 40 years. Since age seems to
be related to work experience, burnout seems to affect nurses with less working experience to
a higher degree than older nurses. Although Maslach et al. (op. cit.) pointed out that this
interpretation has to be made carefully since the nurses who are affected by burnout only after
working as a nurse for some years probably leave their jobs as a nurse. Consequently, the
nurses who are still working at the hospitals are the ones which most probably could survive
the adverse effects of their jobs and thus they show lower levels of burnout.