TY - JOUR

T1 - Stress, burnout, and job dissatisfaction in mental health workers

AU - Rössler, Wulf

PY - 2012/11

Y1 - 2012/11

N2 - As the industrial world has transformed toward a service economy, a particular interest has developed in mental health problems at the workplace. The risk for burnout is significantly increased in certain occupations, notably for health care workers. Beyond the effects of an extensive workload, many working hours, or long night shifts, the medical field has specific stressors. Physicians work in emotionally demanding environments with patients, families, or other medical staff. They must make quick decisions while faced with a quite frequent information overload. All of these stressors have to be weighed against a rapidly changing organizational context within medicine. Today, economics objectives have priority over medical values in health care. In principal, mental health workers should experience similar work stressors and the same contextual factors as health professionals from other medical disciplines. However, several studies have identified stressors that are unique to the psychiatric profession. These challenges range from the stigma of this profession, to particularly demanding relationships with patients and difficult interactions with other mental health professionals as part of multidisciplinary teams to personal threats from violent patients. Other sources of stress are a lack of positive feedback, low pay, and a poor work environment. Finally, patient suicide is a major stressor, upon which a majority of mental health workers report post-traumatic stress symptoms.

AB - As the industrial world has transformed toward a service economy, a particular interest has developed in mental health problems at the workplace. The risk for burnout is significantly increased in certain occupations, notably for health care workers. Beyond the effects of an extensive workload, many working hours, or long night shifts, the medical field has specific stressors. Physicians work in emotionally demanding environments with patients, families, or other medical staff. They must make quick decisions while faced with a quite frequent information overload. All of these stressors have to be weighed against a rapidly changing organizational context within medicine. Today, economics objectives have priority over medical values in health care. In principal, mental health workers should experience similar work stressors and the same contextual factors as health professionals from other medical disciplines. However, several studies have identified stressors that are unique to the psychiatric profession. These challenges range from the stigma of this profession, to particularly demanding relationships with patients and difficult interactions with other mental health professionals as part of multidisciplinary teams to personal threats from violent patients. Other sources of stress are a lack of positive feedback, low pay, and a poor work environment. Finally, patient suicide is a major stressor, upon which a majority of mental health workers report post-traumatic stress symptoms.

KW - Health sciences

KW - Burnout

KW - depression

KW - Job dissatisfaction

KW - Mental health worker

KW - Physician

KW - Psychiatrist

KW - Stress

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84876057725&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s00406-012-0353-4

DO - 10.1007/s00406-012-0353-4

M3 - Scientific review articles

C2 - 22926058

AN - SCOPUS:84876057725

VL - 262

SP - 65

EP - 69

JO - European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience

JF - European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience

SN - 0940-1334

IS - 2 Supplement

ER -