The present study tests a psychosocial model of factors predicting emotional exhaustion and state anger in 333 nurses who worked during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak. Predictors included working conditions, feedback, risk of contracting SARS, and perceived organizational support. Results of path analysis revealed that working conditions contributed significantly to an increase in perceived SARS threat, which led to increased emotional exhaustion and state anger. Positive feedback was directly and positively related to organizational support. Higher levels of organizational support predicted lower perceived SARS threat, emotional exhaustion, and state anger. Implications for health-care providers are discussed. In the period between November 1, 2002, and July 31, 2003, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a contagious illness caused by a recently identified form of the coronavirus, infected approximately 8,100 people worldwide and resulted in almost 800 deaths (World Health Organization, 2003). The SARS outbreak was distinct from other pathogenic outbreaks because of its disproportionately high levels of infection in health-care workers, particularly in nurses (McDonald et al., 2004). This makes sense given that nurses spent greater amounts of time in environments where SARS exposure

Abstract—Erroneous computer entry problems [here: ‘e-errors] in hospital labs threaten the patients’–health carers ’ relationship, undermining the health system credibility. Are e-errors random, and do lab professionals make them accidentally, or may they be traced through meaningful determinants? Theories on internal causality of mistakes compel to seek specific causal ascriptions of hospital lab e-errors instead of accepting some inescapability. Undeniably, ‘To Err is Human’. But in view of rapid global health organizational changes, e-errors are too expensive to lack in-depth considerations. Yet, that e-function might supposedly be entrenched in the health carers ’ job description remains under dispute – at least for Hellenic labs, where e-use falls behind generalized(able) appreciation and application. In this study: i) an empirical basis of a truly high annual cost of e-errors at about €498,000.00 per rural Hellenic hospital was established, hence interest in exploring the issue was sufficiently substantiated; ii) a sample of 270 lab-expert nurses, technicians and doctors were assessed on several personality, burnout and e-error measures, and iii) the hypothesis that the Hardiness vs Alienation personality construct disposition explains resistance vs proclivity to e-errors was tested and verified: Hardiness operates as a resilience source in the encounter of high pressures experienced in the hospital lab, whereas its ‘opposite’, i.e., Alienation, functions as a predictor, not only of making e-errors, but also of leading to burn-out. Implications for apt interventions are discussed. Keywords—Hospital lab, personality hardiness/alienation, e-errors ’ cost, burnout. E

Job burnout and managerial effectiveness relationship: Moderating effects