Burnout in acute psychiatric care : an Italian survey

Emergency mental health professionals are asked to face an increasing number of clinical, legal and economic issues that may be sources of occupational stress. Aims of this cross-sectional, multicentre study were to evaluate the prevalence of burnout and job satisfaction among psychiatrists and nurses working in inpatient psychiatric wards and to investigate the contribution of different individual and environmental factors to burnout. A sample of 36 psychiatrists and 95 nurses from five acute adult mental health wards in Milan completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), a job satisfaction measure and a study-specific questionnaire. A series of linear regression models was constructed to explain the variance in the main dependent variables (MBI sub-scores), and the relative magnitude and direction of their associations with individual and work context and environment variables. The scores on MBI sub-scales indicated a high level of emotional exhaustion in 30.6% of the psychiatrists and 21.1% of the nurses; a high level of depersonalisation in 41.7% and 27.4% respectively; and a low level of personal accomplishment in 25% and 34.7% respectively. Physicians seemed to be more stressed by work environment factors, whereas nurses seemed to be more stressed by personal factors. Variance in emotional exhaustion was mostly accounted for by the combined effect of job satisfaction and excessive workload (R2=0.343; F=16.183; p<0.001). These data suggest that psychiatrists and nursing staff differ in terms of the prominence given to individual stressors in their work environment and confirm that job satisfaction could have a protective role.