ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Occupational Health and Safety
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1640865
This article is part of the Research TopicTrends in Occupational Health Epidemiology: The Role of Diet, Sleep and Shift Work in Chronic DiseaseView all 11 articles
The Mediating Effect of Job Burnout Between Workplace Violence and Sleep Disorders Among Emergency Department Nurses
Provisionally accepted
- West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
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Background:Sleep disorders severely impact the health of emergency department nurses and the quality of nursing care. Workplace violence is a significant contributing factor to the occurrence of sleep disorders among nurses.Objective: To investigate whether job burnout plays a mediating role between workplace violence and sleep disorders among emergency nurses, and to determine the degree of interaction between workplace violence, job burnout and sleep disorders.A cross-sectional survey study was conducted from December 2023 to January 2024, in which 1,540 emergency department nurses in China were surveyed using workplace violence assessment,job burnout assessment and sleep disorder assessment questionnaires. Spearman correlation analysis was employed to assess the relationships among workplace violence, job burnout, and sleep disorders. Mediation structural equation modeling analysis was performed using the PROCESS macro in SPSS which is a plug-in special for mediating and moderating effect analysis.Results: Among the 1,540 emergency department nurses surveyed, 59.3% experienced sleep disorders. Workplace violence showed a positive correlation with job burnout (r = 0.529, P < .01) and with sleep disorders (r = 0.950, P < .01). Job burnout was also positively correlated with sleep disorders (r = 0.343, P < .01).Workplace violence significantly predicted job burnout (β = 1.658, P < .01) and sleep disorders (β = 0.250, P < .01). Job burnout significantly predicted sleep disorders (β = 0.132, P < .01).The overall mediating effect of job burnout between workplace violence and sleep disorders accounted for 46.7% of the total effect, and this mediating effect was statistically significant.: Job burnout has mediated the impact of workplace violence on sleep disorders among emergency nurses. This indicates that intervening in job burnout among emergency department nurses is a key pathway to reducing the occurrence of their sleep disorders. Simultaneously, combining interventions targeting workplace violence may yield more comprehensive and efficient results.Future research should employ longitudinal designs to examine the impact trajectories of workplace violence on job burnout and sleep disorders among emergency nurses.
Keywords: Emergency department nurse, Job burnout, Workplace Violence, sleep disorder, Nurse
Received: 04 Jun 2025; Accepted: 19 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mao, Zhihan, Zhong, Zhang, Chen and Zou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Liqun Zou, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
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