How Leaders, Teams and Organisations can prevent Burnout and build Resilience: a thematic analysis'

Burnout occurs commonly in palliative care. Building resilience helps to mitigate the effects of burnout. Little is known about the importance of leaders, teams and organisations in preventing burnout and promoting resilience in palliative care.

We studied palliative care clinicians with more than a decade's experience looking into their experiences on the role leaders, teams and organisations play in burnout and resilience.

This is a thematic analysis focusing on how leaders, teams and organisations influence burnout and resilience. 18 palliative care clinicians-5 doctors, 10 nurses and 3 social workers-who worked in various palliative care settings (hospital, home hospice and inpatient hospice) were interviewed using semistructured questionnaires. The mean age of the interviewees was 52 years old, and the mean number of years practising palliative care was 15.7 years (ranging from 10 to 25 years). The interviews were recorded verbatim and were transcribed and analysed using a thematic analysis approach.

The following themes featured prominently in our study. For leaders: being supportive, caring and compassionate, being a good communicator and showing protective leadership. With teams: being like-minded, caring for the team, sharing the burden and growing together. For organisations: having a strong commitment to palliative care, supporting staff welfare and development, open communication, adequate staffing and organisational activities promoting staff well-being were described as protective against burnout and promoting resilience.

Leaders, teams and organisations play an important role in helping palliative care teams to reduce burnout and promote resilience.