Psychological occupational syndromes in UK emergency medicine doctors: a scoping review

Doctors working in UK emergency departments face high workloads, stretched resources and threats to career sustainability. Prolonged stress in the context of high workloads is associated with the development of psychological occupational syndromes such as burnout and compassion fatigue.

This scoping review aimed to map the existing literature available to provide an understanding of the psychological occupational syndromes experienced by UK doctors working in emergency medicine.

A systematic search was conducted using PubMed, Embase, APA Psycnet and CINAHL. Reference lists and supplementary searches were also conducted.

Seventeen papers were eligible for inclusion in this review. Factors highlighted as relevant to the experience of psychological occupational syndromes included organizational barriers, team functioning, personal and demographic factors, and the nature of the emergency department environment. No research identified in this review looked at whether issues of equality, diversity or inclusion (EDI) were related to the experience of psychological occupational syndromes.

There are similarities across psychological occupational syndromes in terms of how they are experienced by emergency medicine doctors and their consequences; however, there is a lack of research determining causality over time, looking at multiple psychological occupational syndromes together and considering EDI factors, which limits the ability to draw firm conclusions. The findings of this review align with existing research and identify gaps in the evidence base that should be addressed with future research.