Impact Of Two Counselling Strategies On Burnout Among Married Working Nursing Mothers In Ibadan, Nigeria.

ABSTRACT

This study examined the relative effectiveness of Family Counselling Therapy and the Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy in reduce burnout among married working nursing mothers. The moderating effects of participants‘ personality type, childrearing styles and spousal communication on burnout of married working nursing mothers were also investigated. The study also sought to determine if participants‘ family size, gender of children, age at and length of marriage, educational qualification, work experience, work environment and work status were predictive of their burnout.

The study employed the descriptive survey and the quasi-experimental pre-test, post-test control group designs. Multistage sampling procedure was used in selecting initial sample of 600 married working nursing mothers was selected from various organizations from whom the baseline data was obtained. A total of 97 out of the 600 married working nursing mothers, who were experiencing burnout, constituted the final sample for the study. The dependent variables of the study were the post-test burnout scores of married working nursing mothers.

The effect of each of the main independent variables, family counselling and the rational emotive behaviour therapies on participants‘ personality types, child rearing styles and spousal communication were also tested with the moderating effects of the predictor variables. This also included family size, gender of children, age at and length of marriage, educational qualification, work experience, work environment and work status.

Data for the study were collected using six research instruments. These were the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) developed by Kristensen, Borritz, Villadsen and Kristensen (2005), to measure personal burnout, Marital Stress Inventory (MSI) developed by Hudson (1982) and adopted by Omoluabi (1994), to measure distress and discord, Primary Communication Inventory (PCI) by Locke, Sabaght and Thomas (1967), to measure soundness of communication, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Senior (EPQ Adult) by Eysenck and Eysenck (1975), to measure personality attributes, Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) by Buri (1991) to measure childrearing styles and the Personal Data Questionnaire (PDQ), a researcher-designed instrument to obtain demographic characteristics or bio-data.

Six hypotheses were formulated tested using one-way Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), Multiple Regression Analyses and two-way Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) as appropriate for each hypothesis. All tests of significance for the hypotheses were performed at 0.05 alpha level when the F-ratio was statistically significant. Post-hoc analysis was performed using Fisher‘s protected t-test procedure.

REBT was more efficacious in reducing burnout than family counseling, the personality traits and parenting styles did not significantly influence their burnout while the quality of spousal communication significantly impacted on their burnout. The age at marriage and educational qualification made the greatest contribution to the prediction of burnout among the married working nursing mothers. These results were discussed in the light of the existing literature and recommendations were based on the findings.