The main findings of this study are as follows. a There are differences in the status of nurses' work addiction in clinical work. We found that 67.90%of the nurses were in a state of low addiction, and 32.1% of nurses were in a state of high addiction, indicating that the state of clinical nursing work addiction is not very serious. b Nurses' job titles, emotional exhaustion.and reduced sense of accomplishment had an impact on the potential categories of work addiction in clinical nurses (P < 0.05) Our study shows that nurses with burnout tend to have higher levels of work addiction, and it is an important predictor of nurse work addiction and can independently explain 20% of the burnout variant
Clinical nurse work addiction is heterogeneous
In this study, we found significant heterogeneity in work addiction among clinical nurses in the sample. We refer to them as the low work addiction group (category 1), and the high work addiction group (category 2)respectively, and their respective groups account for 32.10% and 67.90%of the total, and the vast majority of nurses are in a state of low work addiction. The reasons for this are as follows: In recent years, China has been advocating high-quality nursing services, and clinical nurses not only have to complete busy work tasks but also rack their brains to think about how to innovate to provide better care for patients, and the pressure of work roles has increased, forcing nurses to put more energy into their work, leading to nurse work addiction [27, 28]. In a 2018 survey of nurses in Poland, Kunecka D found that Polish nurses have a high riskof work addiction and that 6% of nurses will be affected by Workaholism.and 40% of nurses may develop workaholism [29], and our study found that 39.5% of nurses have no work addiction, and the majority of nurses with low addiction to work addiction are more serious. Work-addictive states can lead to negative work-related events, which in turn lead to a decline in the quality of care [30]. Therefore, nursing managers can talk more with nurses by holding symposiums, be good at discovering nurses with work addiction tendencies and provide positive guidance, create a good working atmosphere for them, reduce their workload, and maintain their work addiction level in a good state, so as to ensure the physical and mental health of nurses, promote the stable development of the nursing team, and then provide better nursing services for patients.
Potential cross-sectional influencing factors of work addiction in clinical nurses
Our study used latent profile analysis to divide nurses' work addictions into two groups: low addiction group (category 1) and high addiction group (category 2). Although the number of patients in category two accounts for 39.10%, it is this type of nurse who needs our attention the most. In recent years, nurses' work addiction has become more and more serious, and previous studies have shown that the average score of work addiction among female nurses is higher than that of male nurses, which may be due to the fact that female nurses not only have to take on heavy tasks at work, but also shoulder family tasks, and are unable to better balance work and family, coupled with the impact of female childbirth on work, female nurses often need to work harder, and the work and family pressure is greater than that of male nurses, and the work addiction is more serious [31, 32]. Our results show that nurses with different job titles have different levels of work addiction, and nurses with senior professional titles are more likely to have a high degree of work addiction,which is a bad work phenomenon that will reduce the quality of life and professional effectiveness of nurses [33]. A study showed that the vast majority of nurses with senior professional titles are promoted with a college degree, but with the improvement of hospital requirements nurses with senior professional titles also need to have scientific research achievements, which is more difficult for them, so they tend to spend a lot of time on this, and at the same time, the tasks they undertake at work are more cumbersome and complex, which leads to excessive and continuous work at work [34–36]. Factors influencing nurse work addiction include a number of factors, such as socio-environmental factors, and individual-related factors, such as work environment and personal traits [37, 38]. In our study, we explored the clinical work addiction of nurses from the three dimensions of burnout, which is shown in Table 5, and the results show that nurses' depersonalization and reduced sense of accomplishment are also influencing factors of work addiction. Emotionally exhausted, defined as a state in which the patients not emotionally overwhelmed for a long time, is like an emotionless machine that lacks emotional care and concern for the patient and is simply busy with daily tasks and forced to immerse herself in the work
The predictive effect of burnout on work addiction in patients
Burnout is an unhealthy occupational phenomenon, which is known as chronic sub-health state at work, which is mainly manifested by the severe and persistent state of stress caused by work stress at work, and the work does not achieve the expected results [40, 41]. Studies have shown that individuals with higher levels of burnout also have higher levels of work addiction [43, 44]. Work addiction is manifested as an increase in workload, and forced work may lead to a series of physical and mental consequences for nurses, mainly manifested as physical and mental problems such as exhaustion, anxiety, depression, and irritability,which can easily lead to burnout [45, 46]. Improve nurses' job satisfaction and reduce burnout [46, 47]. Nurses can guide themselves to adjust their mindset and rationally arrange their work and family tasks to achieve work-life balance, which is conducive to preventing and reducing the level of nurses' work addiction[48]. Studies have shown that meditative awareness training can improve workaholic symptoms, increase job satisfaction, reduce working hours, and reduce psychological distress[49]. Therefore, clinical nurses can be trained in meditative awareness to prevent and alleviate their psychological problems caused by work addiction, such as anxiety and depression, by improving their working conditions and organizational structure, thereby improving their job satisfaction [50].
Our study explored the characteristics of work addiction and its association with burnout among clinical nurses in five tertiary hospitals in Shaanxi Province. According to the latent trait analysis, we divided their sense of security into a low addiction group (level 1) and a high addiction group (level 2), accounting for 67.90 and 3210% of the total number of nurses surveyed,respectively. Factors that predict clinical nurse job addiction include nurse title and burnout. Burnout was an important predictor of work addiction and could independently explain the 18.70%change in work addiction in nurses. These predictors are of great significance for reducing the work addiction of clinical nurses, and hospital administrators should pay attention to them.