The Association Between Fear of Future Workplace Violence and Burnout Among Nurses in China: A Cross-sectional Study

Background: Fear of future workplace violence has adverse effects on nurses' health outcomes. However, the association between fear of future workplace violence and burnout among nurses in China remains unknown.

Methods: Enrolled in the study were 1897 nurses from 12 tertiary hospitals of Shandong Province, China. Fear of future workplace violence was measured using the Fear of Future Violence at Work scale. Burnout was measured using the 15-item Maslach Burnout Service Inventory. Ordinal logistic regression analysis was used to examine the association between fear of future workplace violence and burnout.

Results: The prevalence of high emotional exhaustion, high cynicism, and low personal accomplishment was 26.7%, 38.1%, and 35.6%, respectively, while 72.9% of participants had high levels of fear of future workplace violence. Among nurses, compared with high levels of fear of future workplace violence, low levels of fear were associated with a lower degree of emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and personal accomplishment; and medium levels of fear were associated with a lower degree of emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a higher degree of personal accomplishment.

Limitations: This was a cross-sectional study, which could not establish the causal relationship between fear of future workplace violence and burnout.

Conclusion: There was a significant association between fear of future workplace violence and burnout among nurses. Fear of future workplace violence should be regarded as important issue for hospital administrators and healthcare policy makers when taking measures to ameliorate nurses' burnout.