The effect of different physical activity programs on burnout syndrome and quality of life in emergency department nursing staff

Introduction: The first mention of the description of the “ burnout” syndrom was made by Freudenberger (1974), who recorded the symptoms of physical and mental burnout not only in health care professionals but also in other specialties.

Purpose: To compare the effect of three short-term physical activity programs on the burnout syndrome and the quality of life of nursing staff working in the emergency department of public hospitals.

Material & Method: The sample was 40 nurses and nursing assistants from the emergency department of the General Hospital of Kavala. The participants in total were 33 (82.5%) women and 7 (17.5%) men, the study was carried out from December 2021 to January 2022. The participants were divided into 4 equal groups and each followed different physical activity program apart from the control group who did not participate in any program. In total, the participants completed the questionnaires measuring burnout syndrome and quality of life, before the start and after the end of the exercise program. The statistical package used for data entry and processing was SPSS 17.0.

Results: The study sample consisted of 40 subjects, the majority of participants were female (82.5%) and 17.5% were male. The study participants, after the physical exercise intervention, had a reduction in burnout regardless of the exercise group they belonged to, such as reduction in emotional exhaustion and depersonalization with a statistically significant difference, (p=0.001 and p0.05). For the individual quality of life scales, statistically significant differences were found in physical functioning (p=0.016), physical pain (p=0.030), social functioning (p=0.004), and spiritual mental health (p=0.002).

Conclusions: Physical activity has a beneficial effect on the indicators of occupational burnout and quality of life. Early recognition of the problem and taking measures is considered essential to prevent and limit the effects of the syndrome.