The relationship between hardiness/ locus of control and burnout in nurses

The certain personality characteristics including hardiness and locus of Control are mediating and facilitatively a stressful life events and psychology problems such as burnout due to work. Nursing has always been a stressful profession and nurses are therefore prone to high degree of burnout, but the majority of studies in this field have emphasis on other factors on preventing of burnout and we can rarely find a study which addressed personality factors as a mediator / moderator for burnout. In this descriptive – correlative study the relationship between hardiness / locus of control and burnout among 300 full time nurses were examined. 300 nurses were selected randomly. instruments: sample selection form, demographic inventory, Ahvaz hardiness scale, Rotter,s locus of control scale, Tedium burnout scale have been used to measure the variables. In this study 300 nurses was cooperated with an average age 25-53 years that was 214 (%71/3) female and 86(%28/7) male data analysis indicated that no differences in burnout were found to sex(p=0.1) and Pearson correlation indicated that burnout scores were not significantly associated with age. A significant negative correlation was found between hardiness and burnout(r=-0.52, p=0.000) and a significant positive correlation was found between external locus of control and burnout (r=0.44, p=0.000) and a significant correlation was found between internal locus of control and burnout. (r = - 0.42, p= 0.000) As it was found that hardiness as personality characteristics plays an important role in burnout and predicts the majority of variances in burnout it is suggested that using the formal-informal training method which hardiness components will be addressed is the best Preventing strategy for burnout in nurses.