The association between alexithymia, emotional intelligence and burnout among nursing assistants working in nursing home settings: A cross-sectional study

Aims To determine the explanatory power of alexithymia and emotional intelligence over burnout and to examine their combined explanatory capacity over burnout in the context of older adult care. Design Cross-sectional. All participants voluntarily and anonymously completed a questionnaire survey. They were all blind to the aim of the study. Methods One hundred and fifty-nine nursing assistants recruited during 2014 took part in the study. They belong to 10 nursing homes in the north of Spain. Sociodemographic and work-related information was collected, and measures of burnout, alexithymia and emotional intelligence were administered. Data were examined by means of regression analyses. Results The analysis showed that alexithymia made a moderate contribution to the depersonalization and personal accomplishment dimensions of burnout, controlling for the influence of work characteristics. Emotional intelligence did not have incremental validity over alexithymia in explaining burnout. Conclusion Alexithymia, rather than emotional intelligence, is a stronger explanatory variable for burnout among nursing assistants working in nursing homes. Impact Alexithymia and emotional intelligence are related to burnout and help to explain why, in the same context, each worker is affected differently by chronic stress at work. However, their combined explanatory capacity in nursing assistants working with older people remains underexplored. In our sample, alexithymia explains burnout better than emotional intelligence, a finding that was both unexpected and theoretically relevant. Researchers should take this into account when studying personal resources to prevent and manage burnout among nursing assistants, as alexithymia, rather that emotional intelligence, could play an important role once workers are burned out. Training nursing assistants to identify and describe emotions should be considered as part of their training programmes and/or in nursing homes as an institutional strategy to prevent burnout and to improve the quality of older adult care.