Behavioral Health Provider Burnout and Mental Health Care in the Veterans Health Administration

Although many studies assess predictors of provider burnout, few analyses provide high-quality, consistent evidence on the impact of provider burnout on patient outcomes exist, particularly among behavioral health providers (BHPs).

To assess the impact of burnout among psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers on access-related quality measures in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA).

This study used burnout in VA All Employee Survey (AES) and Mental Health Provider Survey (MHPS) data to predict metrics assessed by the Strategic Analytics for Improvement and Learning Value, Mental Health Domain (MH-SAIL), VHA's quality monitoring system. The study used prior year (2014-2018) facility-level burnout proportion among BHPs to predict subsequent year (2015-2019) facility-level MH-SAIL domain scores. Analyses used multiple regression models, adjusting for facility characteristics, including BHP staffing and productivity.

Psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers who responded to the AES and MHPS at 127 VHA facilities.

Four compositive outcomes included two objective measures (population coverage, continuity of care), one subjective measure (experience of care), and one composite measure of the former three measures (mental health domain quality).

Adjusted analyses showed prior year burnout generally had no impact on population coverage, continuity of care, and patient experiences of care but had a negative impact on provider experiences of care consistently across 5 years (p < 0.001). Pooled across years, a 5% higher facility-level burnout in AES and MHPS had a 0.05 and 0.09 standard deviation worse facility experiences of care from the prior year, respectively.

Burnout had a significant negative impact on provider-reported experiential outcome measures. This analysis showed that burnout had a negative effect on subjective but not on objective quality measures of Veteran access to care, which could inform future policies and interventions regarding provider burnout.