Background: Palliative care clinicians display less burnout than oncology clinicians. Little is known about the impact of providing both oncology care and primary palliative care in the same setting.
Objectives: The aim was to determine whether nurses providing primary palliative care in addition to oncology care would experience less burnout over time than nurses providing oncology care only.
Methods: The authors performed secondary analysis of the CONNECT study. Three groups of nurses were evaluated: primary palliative care, non-primary palliative care, and standard care. On study enrollment and after one year, nurses completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Multivariable regression analyses were performed to test differences in follow-up burnout scores between groups.
Findings: Overall burnout rates were low at enrollment for all groups. There were no differences in burnout scores at one year between nurses who provided palliative care and nurses in the other two groups. .
Keywords: burnout; oncology nursing; palliative care; work-related quality of life.