Back to all News Burnout In Healthcare Professionals – Recognising, Preventing & Supporting
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Burnout is an important problem within the NHS workplace, unfortunately affecting many healthcare professionals, and it is a growing issue.
It is defined as a state of physical and emotional exhaustion secondary to chronic workplace stress. The National Training Survey for Doctors in 2023 surveyed doctors at all levels and reported that 55% feel work is emotionally exhausting to a high degree and up to 43% feel burnt out due to work. Professionals with high levels of burnout are more likely to make errors at work, suffer with chronic sickness and absences and ultimately more likely to leave the profession. It is important to raise awareness so we can start recognising, preventing and treating burnout.
What is burnout?
Burnout was first described as an occupation phenomenon in healthcare workers. It was recognised by the WHO in 2019 as being underpinned by symptoms such as feelings of being depleted and exhausted, difficulty concentrating, reduced professional efficacy, job cynicism and being critical of one’s work. 6 key areas of worklife were found to be linked to the likelihood of burnout: community, control, workload, fairness, values, and reward.
Who suffers from burnout?
Anyone can suffer from burnout and no one is immune to it. The data shows that healthcare workers are unfortunately more likely to be affected than other professions, due to a multiple of factors. The trend towards burnout in trainees is increasing in all specialties except for Pathology with Emergency medicine and Surgery showing the highest rates. Although there has been lots of statistics regarding the burnout rate in trainees such as junior doctors, increasingly numbers show that trainers (senior doctors and nurses) are also experiencing burnout at higher rates than before with 52% of trainers at high or moderate risk of burnout.
Why are healthcare workers more likely to suffer from burnout than other professions?
Healthcare workers are especially vulnerable to burnout due to a combination of work related factors and human factors. Work related factors seen in medicine include: lack of autonomy over work and shifts, overly demanding job expectations, chaotic and difficult environment within NHS budgets and time constraints, unsocial hours. In terms of human factors, healthcare workers are more likely to be highly empathetic individuals with traits of perfectionism- all associated with burnout.
What are some signs of burnout to look out for?
It is important to recognise that burnout is an insidious process that can take months to years to develop. Whilst the above highlights the culmination of ‘burnout syndrome’, this process starts from workplace behaviours that if unchecked can quickly slide out of control and lead to unhealthy habits.
Early signs of burnout to look out for include progressively increased time at work which leads to a poor balance of work:life and gradual cutting out of healthy social activities, isolation from friends and family and spending longer hours at work, coming home late. This is associated with poor work time boundaries, taking on more projects, and taking work home. This initial increase in work focus and redistribution of priorities that becomes a chronic habit over time is the first step in the slippery slope towards burnout as over time essential pillars of health such as good nutrition, exercise, social community and sleep are eroded away.
Burnout manifests in physical somatisation as well as in emotional and behavioural signs. For example impact on appetite, sleep, poor immunity, frequent headaches and GI disturbances have all been described. Behaviourally, look out for changes in yourself or colleagues such as increasing social isolation, becoming more easily irritable, coming in late to work or leaving early, procrastination and withdrawing from responsibilities.
How can we prevent burnout?
Just like we recognise the importance of physical fitness, “Mental fitness” is equally as important. It is the ongoing practice to keep your mind healthy and in shape and something you have to work on regularly, just like going to a gym, else it soon gets out of shape. Over time you can add ‘exercises’ and practices to your mental health toolkit that you can dip in and out of regularly and more so when you are under stress to keep burnout at bay.
Here are some tips to get you started.
- Boundaries + leaving on time, regular breaks at work
- Continuing hobbies and regular exercise
- Support network
- Reflecting on what’s important for us and our values
- Pillars of health- food- proper nutrition, rest and movement (often made more difficult by shift work)
- Mindfulness, meditation
How to seek help
One of the main barriers healthcare professionals struggle with is seeking help. This is related to a fear of stigma, fears that their professionalism or ability to cope will be questioned and sometimes a fear of breach of confidentiality.
However, it is important to recognise that you are not alone. As shown, Burnout is COMMON in healthcare professionals, and suffering alone and not getting the right help only worsens the problem.
Here are some important things to remember in the burnout recovery journey:
- Getting the right diagnosis and identifying any other issues (depression, anxiety) will allow your treatment to be tailored to best support you.
- This can start by getting help from your own GP. Where confidentiality is a barrier to seeking help, resources such as the Practitioner Health Programme which can help with assessment and treatment.
- You may need to have adjustments at work in conjunction with your occupational health department, or time off work to recover alongside counselling and other therapeutic and pharmacological treatments.
- Recovering from burnout is not a quick or easy process, and returning to the same environment where your burnout happened is likely to lead to the same result unless causative factors are examined and addressed and significant changes are made. For some people this means adjustments to their work, the amount of time they work, the type of work they do, or reassessing their values and goals.
At YOD, we are committed to changing the culture around mental health and helping colleagues understand how burnout can develop. Supporting good mental health practices is vital to provide an environment that encourages all staff to flourish by underpinning its importance in the way we work, practice, lead and teach others from the top down, as well as recognising and providing empathy and understanding to our colleagues who may be suffering.
This allows more colleagues to feel empowered to stay mentally fit which in turn will lower rates of burnout and improve working lives within the NHS.
Sources:
MC research (2019) caring for doctors caring for patients (gmc-uk.org)
Burnout in Healthcare Workers: Prevalence, Impact and Preventative Strategies – PMC (nih.gov)
Burnout hits record high (bma.org.uk)
Wellbeing in Surgeons – Diddy Dias, YouOkayDoc? Ambassador / Yoga & Meditation teacher
