The relationship between secondary traumatic stress and burnout in critical care nurses: The mediating effect of resilience

Purpose: To examine the mediating factor on the association of secondary traumatic stress and burnout among critical care nurses. Design: A correlational study. Methods: Data were collected from a convenience sampling of 147 nurses from two general hospitals who had six or more months of experience working in an intensive care unit. The collected data were analyzed through t-test, ANOVA, Scheffé test, Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Bonferroni correction, and Pearson's correlation coefficient using SPSS 25.0. The mediating effect of resilience was analyzed through the three-stage mediation effect test procedure using hierarchical regression analysis and the Sobel test. Results: Secondary traumatic stress had a statistically significant positive correlation with burnout (r = 0.45, p <.001), and a statistically significant negative correlation between burnout and resilience (r = −0.54, p <.001) was observed. Secondary traumatic stress was found to have a statistically significant effect on resilience, which was the mediating variable (β = −0.17, p =.042). Additionally, secondary traumatic stress had a statistically significant effect on burnout (β = 0.45, p <.001). The significance of the mediating effect of resilience on the relationship between secondary traumatic stress and burnout was investigated using the Sobel test, and the mediating effect of resilience was found to be statistically significant (Z = 1.98, p =.048). Conclusion: Resilience was found to have a partial mediating effect in the relationship between critical care nurses’ secondary traumatic stress and burnout. The study thus provides basic data on the importance of resilience in preventing burnout from secondary traumatic stress.