Joy in Work among Hospital Pharmacists

With the prevalence and severity of burnout among health care providers increasing after the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been calls to manage burnout with a more proactive approach: joy in work. Ample literature is available on burnout experienced by pharmacists, but not on their joy in work.

To build an understanding of hospital pharmacists' perspectives on joy in work by determining how they defined joy and what they viewed as contributors and barriers to joy.

This study was conducted over 9 nonconsecutive weeks between December 2023 and March 2024. An anonymous electronic survey was used to capture information from pharmacists working in a provincial health authority in Alberta. Follow-up interviews were conducted with respondents who consented at the end of the survey.

A total of 152 complete survey responses were collected (representing an estimated 17.7% response rate), and 9 interviews were held. Three themes representing contributors to joy were constructed: purpose, connection and belonging, and autonomy and agency. Two additional themes-systemic factors and large-scale changes-had both positive and negative impacts on joy. Barriers to joy were feeling undervalued, conflict, and feeling unsupported.

This study helps in understanding joy in work specifically among hospital pharmacists. Further research is needed to understand joy in work among pharmacists working outside of hospitals (e.g., community pharmacists) and to assess the efficacy of implementing strategies to improve joy within a pharmacy team.