Burnout and spirituality among nurses: A scoping review

Objective: To investigate the relationship between spirituality / religiousness and Burnout Syndrome in nurses, as well as to examine the current evidence for spiritual/religious interventions to alleviate their symptoms.

Data sources: A scoping review was conducted using CINAHL, SCOPUS, Web of Science, Pubmed databases, and grey literature, between January and July 2020.

Study selection: Two researchers performed the searches with a 95% agreement rate for the inclusion and exclusion of the studies. Both quantitative and qualitative studies published in peer-reviewed journals, using Spanish, Portuguese or English language were included. Restriction on publication date was not applied.

Data extraction: A total of 1143 articles were identified and 18 were included in the final analysis. Quality assessment was performed, following CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA and COREQ guidelines. Finally, the following data were extracted: authors, year, country, study design and sample characteristics, purpose of the study, and major findings.

Data synthesis: The results of the present review show that spirituality / religiousness is a common strategy used by nurses when coping with stress and burnout. Most studies reveal that spiritual and religious beliefs are correlated with lower levels of burnout, exhaustion and depersonalization in different settings. Nevertheless, two studies have not found any relationship and one study has found worse outcomes.

Conclusions: There is a lack of experimental studies trying to examine if spiritual interventions could modify burnout levels in clinical practice. Health managers should be aware of the spirituality / religiousness of their nurses and provide the appropriate spiritual support.