Thesis

3. METHOD
3.1 STUDY POPULATION
The samples in this study were Hungarian and Swedish emergency nurses. Nurses were
chosen as the target group of this research since nurses are thought of as a high risk group of
burnout and stress (Tummers, Janssen, Landeweerd & Houkes, 2001). Emergency nurses
especially have been pointed out as a group facing a series of psychosocial risk factors due to
the nature of their work (Escriba-Aguir, Martin-Baena & Perez-Hoyos, 2006) and thus
emergency nurses were chosen to be investigated in relation to burnout. Also, the literature
has shown that burnout and stress levels could be different in relation to different hospital
wards (Sherman, 2004). The reason why nurses from two different countries were included in
this study was that it wanted to look at the phenomenon of burnout from a nation-based
perspective. Also, since cross-cultural research on burnout is still thought of as rather new and
since there is a need for more cross-cultural research on burnout (Halbesleben & Buckley,
2004), this study decided to contribute to this cross-cultural gap in the literature. Also, this
study chose to include demographic variables, work-related factors, social support, personality
factors, and life satisfaction, as possible variables affecting burnout in order to establish more
concretely which factors are significant determinates if and when nurses are experiencing
burnout.
3.1.1. The Hungarian sample
12 hospitals were contacted via e-mail in the area of Budapest and approximately after two
weeks had passed, three hospitals had given a positive answer to the initial e-mail. After the
two weeks had passed, the remaining nine hospitals were contacted via telephone. In each of
the nine hospitals, the emergency wards were asked for and either the head nurse could be put
on the line directly or a time was given when the head nurse could be reached. A time period
of about 2 weeks passed until all the head nurses working at the remaining nine hospitals had
been spoken to. Out of the nine hospitals contacted over the telephone, four of the head nurses
informed me their inclination to participate in this study. Out of the five remaining hospitals,
one hospital requested for an official letter from the university containing details about the
present study and one hospital requested the director of the hospital to be asked for his