This this study aims to detail and identify the nurses' difficulties in dementia care in acute care hospitals.
Study participants were 2,032 nurses working in 14 public and national acute hospitals with more than 200 beds nationwide in Japan. Study design is a cross-sectional study using a self-rating questionnaire.
The questionnaire includes 22 items of burnout (Japanese version of MBI-HSS)(objective variable), 16 items of the NDDC （Nurses' difficulties in dementia care ）scale developed by the authors, 24 items of the Work-life balance scale, 17 items of personal demographics, and 8 items of environmental factors (explanatory variables). Descriptive statistics, a t-test and one-way ANOVA, and a multiple regression analysis were performed. Using the variables finally selected by the s multiple regression analysis as observation variables, a causal model was created, and the goodness of fit was verified by the covariance structure analysis
In total 1,235 responses (60.8%) were determined as valid. The mean total score of the burnout was 12.6, and there was no statistically significant difference in the mean score among the participating hospitals. In the causal model of the dementia nursing difficulties, such difficulties directly affect burnout of nurses providing dementia nursing for older patients and the difficulties indirectly affected burnout through negative feelings. The goodness of fit of the covariance structure analysis was GFI = 0.918, AGFI = 0.888, RMSEA = 0.073. The path coefficients were all statistically significant, and the explanation rate for burnout was 0.83.
It was found that nurses who feel dementia nursing difficulties in acute care hospitals are more likely to develop burnout. Prevention of burnout in this population needs offering better training to improve the dementia nursing skills, enabling nurses to participate in educational training, promoting interprofessional cooperation in the workplace.
