Alexithymia and its association with burnout, depression and family support among Greek nursing staff
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BioMed Central
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Alexithymia and its association with burnout, depression and family support among Greek nursing staff Dionisios Bratis*1, Athanasios Tselebis1, Christos Sikaras1, Aikaterini Moulou1, Konstantinos Giotakis1, Emmanuel Zoumakis2 and Ioannis Ilias3 Address: 1Sotiria General Hospital of Chest Diseases, Athens, Greece, 2First Department of Pediatrics, University of Athens Medical School, Athens, Greece and 3Endocrine Department, Elena Venizelou Hospital, Athens, Greece Email: Dionisios Bratis* - [email protected]; Athanasios Tselebis - [email protected]; Christos Sikaras - [email protected]; Aikaterini Moulou - [email protected]; Konstantinos Giotakis - [email protected]; Emmanuel Zoumakis - [email protected]; Ioannis Ilias - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 11 August 2009 Human Resources for Health 2009, 7:72
doi:10.1186/1478-4491-7-72
Received: 18 March 2009 Accepted: 11 August 2009
This article is available from: http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/7/1/72 © 2009 Bratis et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract Background: Few studies have examined the relation between alexithymia (i.e. the inability to recognize and verbalize emotions) and professional burnout. Considering the absence of relevant studies in the Greek scientific literature, the aim of this work was to examine the associations of alexithymia with the three facets of professional burnout, the perception of family support and depression in nursing personnel. Methods: The study was performed in one of the largest hospitals in Greece and included 95 nurses. Assessments of alexithymia, burnout, depression and family support were made by means of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory and the Julkunen Family Support Scale, respectively. Student's t-test, Pearson's correlation and stepwise linear regression were used for the evaluation of data. Results: Alexithymia was correlated positively with depression, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and negatively with sense of family support and personal achievement. Additionally, family support was correlated positively with personal achievement and negatively with depression. Conclusion: In the scientific literature there is a debate as to whether alexithymia is a stable personality characteristic or if it is dependent on symptoms of mental disorders. We tried to interpret the associations of alexithymia with professional burnout, depressive symptoms and family support. From this study it appears very likely that alexithymia is directly associated with depression and personal achievement, but also indirectly with the sense of family support.
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