Background: Burnout is a psychological syndrome in nursing due to prolonged close contact with other people. Social support is one of the major factors inhibiting the negative effects of stress. This study was performed in order to determine the burnout and the social support for nurses and also the relationship between these variables.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 114 nurses working in hospitals of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. For collecting the data, valid and reliable questionnaires of social support McCain and Marklyn and Burnout Inventory Maslach and Jackson were used. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 17 and Chi-square test.
Results: 86% of nurses stated that they had been received the average social support from their colleagues, head nurses and their supervisors. 67.5% of them had a burnout. 34.2% of them expressed levels of burnout in emotional exhaustion in the moderate level, and more than half of the nurses reported low levels of depersonalization and inadequacy. There was a statistically significant relationship between social support and burnout (p=0.01).
Conclusions: Due to high levels of burnout in nurses and not being ideal the amount of social support received from colleagues and a positive impact that this support could have on the performance of nurses, it is necessary to consider arrangements to reduce the burnout and increase the receiving of social support.