Associations between perceived overqualification, transformational leadership and burnout in nurses from intensive care units: A multicentre survey.

AIMS: To explore whether perceived overqualification increases the risk of burnout and whether transformational leadership negatively moderates this relationship. BACKGROUND: Perceived overqualification might contribute to burnout and lead to poor experience of transformational leadership, and transformational leadership might be associated with burnout. However, these relationships have not yet been confirmed. METHODS: A multicentre cross-sectional study. A total of 321 nurses from intensive care units were recruited from six tertiary hospitals. Scale of Perceived OverQualification, Transformational Leadership Questionnaire and emotional exhaustion subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey were employed to collect the data. Hierarchical multiple regression and bootstrap resampling were applied to analyse the data. RESULTS: Burnout was positively associated with perceived overqualification and negatively associated with transformational leadership (each p < 0.05). Transformational leadership significantly mediated the relationship between perceived overqualification and burnout (b = -0.6389, 95% confidence interval: -0.8706, -0.4072). CONCLUSION: Our findings indicated that perceived overqualification and transformational leadership directly or indirectly affect burnout among nurses from intensive care units. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGERS: Personal and organizational-oriented interventions utilizing nurses' overall qualifications and implementing transformational leadership should be employed by nurse managers to alleviate burnout and promote the work performance of nurses from intensive care units.

Bacteria in cancer therapy: A new generation of weapons.

Tumors are presently a major threat to human life and health. Malignant tumors are conventionally treated through radiotherapy and chemotherapy. However, traditional therapies yield unsatisfactory results due to high toxicity to the normal cells, inability to treat deep tumor tissues, and the possibility of inducing drug resistance in the tumor cells. This has caused immunotherapy to emerge as an effective and alternate treatment strategy. To overcome the limitations of the conventional treatments as well as to avert the risk of various drug resistance and cytotoxicity, bacterial anti-tumor immunotherapy has raised the interest of researchers. This therapeutic strategy employs bacteria to specifically target and colonize the tumor tissues with preferential accumulation and proliferation. Such bacterial accumulation initiates a series of anti-tumor immune responses, effectively eliminating the tumor cells. This immunotherapy can use the bacteria alone or concomitantly with the other methods. For example, the bacteria can deliver the anti-cancer effect mediators by regulating the expression of the bacterial genes or by synthesizing the bioengineered bacterial complexes. This review will discuss the mechanism of utilizing bacteria in treating tumors, especially in terms of immune mechanisms. This could help in better integrating the bacterial method with other treatment options, thereby, providing a more effective, reliable, and unique treatment therapy for tumors.