THE EFFECT OF CARING FOR COVID 19 PATIENTS ON NURSES’ PRODUCTIVITY AND BURNOUT

Iran has been one of the countries hardest hit by the health crisis caused by
the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic of this disease has put considerable physical and emotional on
frontline healthcare workers that can impair the quality of services provided to patients. Therefore, this
study aimed to investigate the effect of caring for COVID 19 patients on productivity and burnout of
nurses.
Materials & Methods: The present study is a descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study that was
conducted in 1399 in Farhikhtegan Hospital in Tehran. 120 nurses with at least six months of experience,
no use of psychotropic drugs in the past year and no managerial position were selected by available
sampling method. Data was collected using the Maslach Burnout Questionnaire and Hersey and
Goldsmith Human Resources Productivity Questionnaire and they were analyzed using descriptive
statistics, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson correlation test, and independent t-test and SPSS
version 22.
Results: productivity in nurses caring for COVID 19 patients (61.11± 9.7) was less than productivity of
other nurses (79.7± 7.7) and Job burnout in nurses caring for COVID 19 patients (66.07± 13.13) was
more than Job burnout of other nurses (45.7± 11.07). There was meaningful difference in nurses'
productivity in caring conditions for COVID19 patients. There was meaningful inverse relationship
between burnout and employee productivity (r = -0.58) and (P < 0.001).
Conclusion: Caring for COVID 19 patients reduces the productivity and increases the burnout of nurses.
Managers need to adopt the supportive, encouragement, and training interventions to increase the
productivity and job burnout of nurses in health crisis