Health Care Workers and Burnout: A Cross-Sectional Study

Workplace violence, a known contributor to burnout, is on the rise among health care workers, including nurses. Recent interest in the implementation of a trauma-informed care framework in health care has focused on training staff to increase their knowledge of traumatic experiences and to improve their attitudes toward trauma-informed care. These interventions have the potential to mitigate health care worker burnout.

The purpose of this study was to explore associations between workers' attitudes toward trauma-informed care, worries about workplace violence, and burnout through a survey administered as part of a public health initiative.

A voluntary, cross-sectional, online, anonymous, Qualtrics-based survey was distributed via email and completed by 233 staff members across three sites and six departments in an urban academic health system between April 26, 2019, and March 14, 2020. The content of the survey included questions on respondent demographics; knowledge of trauma and exposure to patients with trauma; preparedness and practices addressing patients with traumatic experiences; attitudes about trauma-informed care as measured by the short form of the Attitudes Related to Trauma-Informed Care (ARTIC) instrument, the ARTIC-10; worries about aggression; and burnout.

Multivariable analyses showed that staff who worried about experiencing aggression in the workplace had an almost twofold increase in odds of burnout, whereas staff with more positive attitudes toward trauma-informed care had lower odds of burnout. The relationship between worrying about workplace aggression and burnout was independent of attitudes toward trauma-informed care.

Trauma-informed care may play a role in decreasing the risk of burnout in health care workers. Additionally, efforts to decrease burnout need to consider workplace safety or violence reduction.