Window and day light, reduce burnout syndrome in intensive care staff

Abstract

Objectives: Burnout syndrome is widespread among health care workers working in intensive care units (ICU), which can affect the quality of patient care and performance. This study was planned to investigate the effect of windows and daylight on burnout syndrome in an intensive care setting. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire consisting of two parts was applied to doctors and nurses working in intensive care units. In the first part of the questionnaire, questions about sociodemographic data, intensive care conditions and intensive care environment were studied, and the second part was the "Maslach Burnout Scale". Two groups, workers in the ICU with and without windows were compared in the study. Results: There are 46 workers in the upper ICU who are taking daylight and 59 workers in the lower ICU without windows; a total of 105 people attended to the research. The mean age was 31.17±6.00 and 28.53±5.23, respectively and 75 (71.4%) of the participants were nurses, 30 (28.6%) were doctors. To the question "Do you want a window in your working environment?" 98.1% of respondents gave the answer yes and 89.5% stated that the ambient daylight would have a positive effect on their performance. Exhaustion and cynicism were significantly higher at the lower floor ICU workers than the upper floor ICU workers (p=0.02, p=0.002). Conclusion: Arranging ICUs with windows to receive daylight is a useful way to increase the work performance and productivity and to decrease medical mistakes of health staff who works in ICUs by reducing the incidence of burnout syndrome.