Strategies to address burnout and trauma among psychiatric workers: Codeveloping recommendations and examining...

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health
• Psychiatric Care
• Workplace Safety

Background:

• Mental health care providers experience elevated risks of burnout and PTSD due to workplace violence and chronic stressors.
• Postpandemic workforce challenges exacerbate these issues, with limited evidence guiding interventions in psychiatric hospitals.
• A need exists to establish baselines for evaluating efforts to reduce workplace trauma and burnout.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and prioritize strategies for mitigating workplace violence, burnout, and trauma among mental health care providers.
• To assess hospital leaders' and union representatives' priorities and perceived barriers/facilitators for implementing these strategies.
• To inform collaborative efforts for enhancing mental health worker well-being.

Main Methods:

• Consultation with 28 cross-sector stakeholders to generate 12 recommended strategies.
• Preimplementation survey of 22 hospital leaders and 18 union representatives at Canadian inpatient mental health facilities.
• Ranking of strategy priorities and rating of implementation barriers and facilitators.

Main Results:

• Highest priority recommendations focused on proactive strategies: preventing critical events, fostering psychologically healthy workplaces, and enhancing staff response capabilities.
• Hospitals were more likely to implement postexposure responses (e.g., debriefing) than proactive or capacity-building measures.
• Implementation practices were linked to familiarity and feasibility rather than agreement with recommendations.

Conclusions:

• A significant gap exists between prioritized proactive strategies and current implementation practices in psychiatric hospitals.
• Collaboration among hospital leadership, employee associations, and government is crucial for preventing workplace burnout and trauma.
• Future interventions should focus on implementing proactive and capacity-building strategies to better support mental health care providers.