Burnout syndrome is a psychological state resulting from prolonged exposure to job stressors. High rates of professional burnout syndrome have been found among health service professionals.

To assess and compare the burnout syndrome level between Intensive Care Unit and general unit nurses, and study its association with the sociodemographic.

The aim of this study was to determine that working in different units can affect on burnout syndrome.

The study was carried out using a descriptive-analytic method. 110 nurses were participated in the study from Mahabad Imam hospital in Iran. 55 nurses belong to the intensive care units, and 55 nurses belong to the general units. Two evaluation tools were used: a sociodemographic and the Maslach Burnout Inventory: includes three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Data was analyzed using SPSS package.

The comparative analysis of the burnout dimensions shows that emotional exhaustion level and depersonalization level do not have significant differences between both groups. Reduced personal accomplishment dimension have a significantly differences between both groups. (29.64 +/- 8.53 vs 34.31 +/- 14.16) p < 0.05. The intensive care unit nurses reported their high emotional exhaustion (21.8%), high depersonalization (14.5%) and reduced personal accomplishment (41.5%). And the general unit nurses reported their high emotional exhaustion (9.1%), high depersonalization (18.2%) and reduced personal accomplishment (51.1%).

The burnout levels are moderate to high among the nursing professionals studied. The general care unit nurses are the most vulnerable to suffering high levels of reduced personal accomplishment.