Determination of psychosocial care competence, therapeutic alliance and burnout levels in nurses

INTRODUCTION: This study aims to determine the psychosocial care competence, therapeutic alliance, and burnout levels of nurses and examine the relationships between them.
METHODS: The study was conducted between January and April 2025 with 226 nurses working at Malatya Turgut Özal Medical Center. Data were collected using a Sociodemographic Information Form, the Psychosocial Care Competence Self-Assessment Scale, the Brief Revised Working Inventory/bond subscale, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory via Google Forms. Descriptive statistics, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the Kruskal-Wallis test, the Mann-Whitney U test, and Spearman’s correlation test were used in the analysis of the data.
RESULTS: The mean age of the participants was 30.63±6.43. Psychosocial care competence levels showed significant differences based on education and income status, while therapeutic alliance/bond levels showed significant differences based on education (p<0.001). A weak negative relationship was found between the psychosocial care competence and burnout levels of the participants, while there was a moderate positive relationship between their psychosocial care competence and therapeutic alliance/bond levels, and there was a weak negative relationship between their burnout and therapeutic alliance/bond levels (p<0.001).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: It was determined that as the psychosocial care competence and therapeutic alliance/bond levels of nurses increased, their burnout levels decreased. Based on the findings of this study, initiatives aimed at increasing the psychosocial care competence and therapeutic alliance levels of nurses may shed light on the development of effective interventions for nurses to cope with burnout.

Keywords: Burnout, nursing, psychosocial care, therapeutic alliance