Mental Health

Caring Triggers "Burn Out" in Nurses

By Christine Hsu | Update Date: Aug 19, 2014 07:40 PM EDT

Nurses who want to help others are most likely to quit, according to a new study.

Researchers found that nurses who are motivated primarily by the desire to help others rather than by their career or lifestyle are more likely to burn out.

The latest study involved more than 700 registered nurses from Northeast Ohio. Researchers said that about 90 percent of women were white women.

Researchers also noted that women being served by workers in most occupations don't really care about the worker's motivation from choosing that career. Researchers noted that people don't care if their mechanic loves cars, they just care if he get's the car fixed.

"We expect women to go into these jobs because they love the people that they're caring for, and this is their primary motivator," researchers Janette Dill, an assistant professor of sociology of the University of Akron, said in a news release.

Dill noted that the assumption is changeable as men attracted to nursing "might not necessarily feel that their whole self has to be devoted to their patients - that they can value their job for other reasons as well."

The findings were presented at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

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