Work stress, hardiness, and burnout among hospital staff nurses.

The question of whether personality hardiness moderates the impact of job stressors on burnout was studied in 107 registered staff nurses from an urban, community hospital who responded to a self-administered questionnaire. Consistent with previous research, burnout was significantly associated with higher levels of perceived job stress and lower levels of personality hardiness. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses further indicated that work stressors (particularly stress due to workload) and hardiness were significant additive rather than interactive predictors of burnout. That is, hardiness had beneficial main effects in reducing burnout, but did not appear to prevent high levels of job stress from leading to high levels of burnout.