The moderating effect of psychological flexibility on the relationship between burnout and COVID-19 stress in nurses

ABSTRACT

While nurses generally report high levels of burnout (The Joint Commission, 2020), often due to the post-traumatic stress associated with nursing, the International Council of Nurses (2021) noted an increase in the number of nurses reporting burnout during COVID-19. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been suggested as an intervention strategy for burnout as psychological flexibility, a key outcome of ACT, is correlated with lower burnout among nurses. The goal of this study was to examine whether psychological flexibility moderated the relationship between COVID-19-specific post-traumatic stress and burnout. Fifty-three nurses from the United States completed a survey that measured their levels of burnout, secondary-traumatic stress, COVID-19-specific post-traumatic stress, and psychological flexibility, as well as a variety of demographic and COVID-19 related factors. Results of a moderation analysis indicated that, while there was a significant, positive correlation between COVID-19-specific post-traumatic stress and burnout, psychological flexibility did not significantly moderate that relationship. These results are vital for clinicians and organizations dedicated to helping nurses, indicating that a commonly-used method for reducing and preventing burnout would likely not be time or cost-effective for nurses during a global health crisis such as COVID-19. It is possible that this study?s small sample size contributed to the non-significant findings and brings into question the generalizability of this study to larger groups of nurses. Future research ought to focus on whether there is enough nuance between the questionnaires used to measure the general post-traumatic stress associated with nursing and event-specific post-traumatic stress, such as that associated with COVID-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)