Double-Duty Caregiving, Burnout, Job Satisfaction, and Work–Life Balance Among Italian Healthcare Workers: A Descriptive Study

The present study aimed to evaluate the multivariate relationships between variables related to burnout and job stress in healthcare workers, evaluating if the relationship between these dimensions, the variables related to personal factors (age, seniority of service), and work–family balance factors (overwork related to unused vacation days, accumulated overtime hours) change when the worker is engaged in double-caregiving activities. Indeed, the twofold activities of home caregiving and caring at work might expose workers to challenging situations. To accomplish our aim, we carried out network analyses on data from 466 workers (77.90% females). Participants completed the Link Burnout Questionnaire (LBQ) and the Job Satisfaction Scale (OSI). Contrary to expectations, the variables related to work–life balance played a marginal role with respect to job satisfaction and burnout risk for the whole sample. In addition, no significant differences emerged between workers who reported dual- caregiving tasks, compared with those who did not. However, some peculiar aspects of the relationship between burnout and job satisfaction emerged in the two subsamples. The findings are discussed, highlighting a framework for understanding the interactions among the assessed variables.