Nursing university faculty and the Burnout Syndrome: a health education issue

Abstract

Knowing the complex demands on university teachers, we aim in this work: Survey the faculty of a state nursing college about the meaning they assign to their profession, relating to aspects that make their work easier or more difficult, considering their traditional, current and future nursing perspectives; Highlight their occupational and free-time leisure activities, identifying them as a means for promoting their health; Verifying how they were inserted in their college’s political-educational project, and identify the challenges of the new curriculum, verifying the meaning of Burnout Syndrome and proposing reading suggestions about it. Methodology: a qualitative research was performed by means of action research. A questionnaire was used (personal, professional and about the theme). Thirteen faculty members were interviewed between men and women after provided consent. The study was approved by the ethics committee. Data collection was performed by correspondence sent to the faculty by their personal mail box. Results: the sample consisted of 13 faculty members of the undergraduate program, most were women, married, and catholic, aged over 40 years and with children.; all participants held a Ph.D. and worked with the undergraduate or graduate program. In terms of their choice of the profession, most was based on vocation and affinity. Regarding their career, perceive it as important, but demanding, wearing and stressing. It provides professional fulfillment, like honors, professional growth, and advising students, but also dissatisfaction, such as excessive work, meetings, responsibilities, and stress. It assigns meaning to the profession of lovability, exchange, dialogue. Their role is one of a facilitator, mediator, problem-solver, and transformer. As a researcher, they value knowledge construction and research development. In extension they see themselves as a partner and articulator in the public university tripod. As to the tradition profession, they see it as technicist, fragmented, biologicist, and unvalued. Currently, they see it as under development, become international and building its own knowledge. For the future, they foresee acknowledgement, valorization, optimism, and humanization. Favorable aspects of the faculty profession are interpersonal relationship, teaching, research and extension. Unfavorable aspects regard excessive activities, ethical issues, and few investments. Their insertion in the new curriculum is ambivalent, but with horizontal relationship. There is a commitment to mental health, which characterizes the Burnout Syndrome, Conclusion: Therefore, the subjects see themselves as having vocation, ambivalent, with aspects that make the faculty profession easier and more difficult, and they state they like their profession and see it as one that causes excessive work load, stress, and tiredness. However, they seek leisure and therapy to relieve their tension. They recognize signs that characterize Burnout Syndrome without knowing it represents this nomenclature. They evaluate the presented text as interesting, highlighting the importance of clarification/instruction as an educational action.