Nurses With Primary Desire to Help Others are More Likely to be Stressed

Researchers have found that nurses who are driven primarily by the desire to help others are more likely to burn out on the job.

Nursing is a female-dominated occupation and being a female is linked with being caring, nurturing and selfless. Hence, the desire to help others is considered to be the right motivation to pursue in this field. The study led by University of Akron researchers found nurses who pursue their profession for reasons other than or in addition to the desire to help others find the job less stressful .

This is further tied to less burnout, enhanced personal health and high levels of commitment to their job. This finding is based on the evaluation of data retrieved from a survey that included over 700 registered nurses in Northeast Ohio. Nearly 90 percent of them were white females.

The researchers noticed that those being served by workers in most occupations do not care about the workers' motivation for picking the particular career.

However, study author Janette Dill says that health care is different; "We expect women to go into these jobs because they love the people that they're caring for, and this is their primary motivator."

She continues to state that this cultural assumption can be altered, more men might be drawn towards nursing profession and they can value their job for various other reasons. Those nurses who are motivated by lifestyle the job offers as well as the ability to interact personally with patients are much more satisfied with employer and are less likely to quit their job.

"The study did not attempt to measure how well nurses with different motivations and care approaches performed their jobs," the authors suggest. "Those relationships be explored in a future study of a broader sample of nurses."

The finding was presented at the American Sociological Association.