Gender role attitudes of hospital nurses in Japan: Their relation to burnout, perceptions of physician–nurse collaboration, evaluation of care, and intent to continue working

AIM: The purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship between gender role attitudes of nurses and burnout, perceptions of physician-nurse collaboration, evaluation of care, and intent to continue working. METHODS: The subjects of the study were 798 full-time female nurses working in non-managerial positions at three large hospitals. We analyzed five key survey items--gender role attitudes, burnout, perceptions of physician-nurse collaboration, evaluation of care, and intent to continue working--and showed how these items are related using structural equation modeling. RESULTS: Whether nurses' gender role attitudes were egalitarian or conservative, we found a direct positive effect on burnout. However, a conservative gender role attitude not only showed a direct positive effect on burnout, but also exhibited a direct negative effect on the intent to continue working and on the collaboration constructs cooperativeness with physicians. Conservative gender role attitudes thus have an indirect positive effect on burnout through the corollaries cooperativeness and intent to continue working. We found that cooperativeness not only has a direct negative effect on burnout, but also an indirect negative effect on burnout through evaluation of care. CONCLUSIONS: It was found that nurses harboring conservative gender role attitudes are more vulnerable to burnout, and also less likely to improve their quality of care.