Incidence and prevalence
This study aims to assess the extent of burnout as a major concern in the mental health field on the basis of its prevalence and associated problems. Studies have shown that about 21-67% of practitioners in mental health facilities have experienced high levels of burnout during their lifetime (Gutsan, Patton, William, & Alberto, 2022). For example, in a study in Northern California, it was revealed that 54% of mental health workers suffered from emotional exhaustion while another 38% suffered from depersonalization, although they still depicted high levels of individual accomplishment (Gutsan, Patton, William, & Alberto, 2022). Other studies have shown the existence of emotional exhaustion because a majority of the sampled individuals confirmed having issues with burnout. In a similar study in the UK, it was shown that 54% of employees in the mental health field have high emotional exhaustion (López‐López et al., 2019). Therefore, burnout in the mental health field is a major problem because it has a high prevalence and affects the service delivery of employees in the mental health field.
Existing studies have focused on measuring the prevalence of single professional groups like psychologists or simply considering single-service disciplines like psychosocial rehabilitation. The prevalence of burnout within inpatients and the community-based mental health fields has shown differences. In this study, staff had low levels of burnout compared to community-based workers (Gutsan, Patton, William, & Alberto, 2022). On the other hand, high levels of accomplishment were noted in independent psychologists to those in agency settings. An accurate account of comparative rates of negative burnout is critical in providing clues for a systematic target approach to implement interventions for employees in different programs.
National data and quality
There is a lack of stability in the burnout construct, which should be explored by further studies. Existing studies have indicated that burnout levels are stable for mental health workers over a period of time if they remain untreated. Other studies have concluded that burnout becomes a chronic condition, and about 40% of workers remain in the same state, 30% experience complex situations, and the remaining 30% have mild burnout (Gutsan, Patton, William, & Alberto, 2022). From existing studies, there is a lack of longitudinal research, particularly in the field of mental health, and this research gap needs to be addressed through additional studies.
Impact on the healthcare system
The mental health field has been linked to high levels of burnout because of its stressful nature. Burnout is a condition that affects the psychological well-being of an individual, leading to depletion of mental energy (Anathi & Penelope, 2020). It is a serious issue if it is not resolved because it becomes difficult for mental health workers to work under stressful conditions. According to O’Connor et al. (2018), fatigue is a common problem in challenging workplace environments like mental health clinics. Therefore, burnout at the mental health facility results in emotional exhaustion, reduced individual performance and depersonalization.
Impact on patient and healthcare systems
The level of burnout in the mental health field has demonstrated that the rate of burnout is higher in some occupational types compared to others. Preliminary studies in Europe have shown that social workers have higher levels compared to psychiatric nurses. A similar study in Great Britain using MBI to measure burnout reported that it was high across all mental health fields (Gutsan, Patton, William, & Alberto, 2022). Consequently, burnout has been linked to reduced job satisfaction of the most affected employees compared to those with low levels of severity. Preliminaries have shown a research gap because they have not compared rates of burnout across disciplines in the mental health field.
Financial implication
Methodological problems have been experienced in the majority of the prevalence studies. Existing data has shown that burnout is a widespread problem among mental health employees, and it is clear that the rates are likely to increase with the recent Covid-19 pandemic (Van der Heijden et al., 2019). Across the world, public funding for mental health issues is constant, while the costs of workers’ healthcare benefits and expenses are on the rise. On the other hand, mental health clinics worldwide have increased the need for staff productivity standards. Considering that the mental health field is already facing burnout, increased external pressure and duties are likely to be a source of burnout in the field.
Cultural, healthcare policy, quality, safety, legal and ethical implications
Studies have mentioned burnout as a major cultural problem within the broader mental health field, although it is a continuous construct that makes actual burnout prevalence complex to quantify (Gutsan, Patton, William, & Alberto, 2022). As an approach to address this issue, scores using the MBI model were developed, and a high prevalence of mental health was noted to be 21 and a depersonalization score of 8 (Gutsan, Patton, William, & Alberto, 2022). The challenge in this MBI scale is that it has low scores considered as high compared to other occupational groups. Exploratory studies have linked MBI data scores to other problems, but there is a lacking a system for validating a mark for a high MBI sore. Thus, a literature review should be assessed with a certain degree of skepticism where low scores considered as “high” within the mental health field can increase the prevalence of burnout (Gutsan, Patton, William, & Alberto, 2022). Similarly, it is possible that low rates of burnout need to be evaluated because studies have linked mild burnout with a high risk f developing mental health difficulties. The findings from the literature review point to a need for a systematic review and validation of external studies using proper methodologies to precisely identify the problematic level of burnout in the mental health field. For instance, it is imperative that validation studies depict the levels of burnout that result in poor performance of mental health employees like intentions to leave, health difficulties and poor outcomes.
The problem
The demand for nurses, particularly for the Baby Boomer generation, ages and cases of chronic illnesses become common. According to the US labor statistics, the number of registered nurses will increase by 2028 by at least 12%, and it shows pain for understaffed mental health clinics, increased work for nurses and a high prevalence of burnout (United States Labour Statistics, 2021). Nurses will be required to work long hours in order to deal with the high demand for mental attention. However, increased rates of burnout will result in depression, intentions to leave and other complex mental health situations (Van der Heijden et al., 2019). In a mental health facility, the risk of decreasing patient quality is intensive because it results in mistakes because of exhaustion, infection and death. According to Gustan et al. (2022), a mental health care facility with a nurse-to-employee ratio of 1:4 was found to increase mortality by 7%. These statistics indicate that burnout is a negative issue in the mental health field, and ways of preventing and mitigating its impact should be assessed through studies.
The complexity of the issues around burnout and existing studies are not exhaustive, and there is a need to focus on the extent of burnout as a meso problem in the mental health field and approaches that should be implemented its consequences (Azizi & Nazemi, 2017). This study is founded on an existing review of burnout statistics in the mental health field, but will incorporate critical issues and findings from a broader context of burnout. There is a need to identify the areas of significance to expound on the study and interventions, which will form the basis of conclusions and recommendations for mental health practice. This study is required because it will focus on the full range of challenges and complexities linked to burnout and provide interventions for mitigating burnout issues.
References
Anathi, F. & Penelope, M. (2020). Prevalence of burnout among nurses working at a psychiatric hospital in the Western Cape.Curationis, 43(1). Web.
Azizi, K. & Nazemi, A. (2017). Comparison of resiliency, procrastination, stress and burnout among nurses in psychiatric and non-psychiatric wards. Q J Nurs Manage., 5(1), 80–91.
Gutsan, E., Jami Patton, William, K. & Alberto, C. (2022). Burnout syndrome and nurse-to-patient ratio in the workplace. Marshall University. Web.
López‐López, I., Gómez Urquiza, J., Cañadas, G., Fuente, E., Albendin, L. & Cañadas-De la Fuente, G. (2019). Prevalence of burnout in mental health nurses and related factors: a systematic review and meta‐analysis. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. 28(5), 1032-1041.
O’Connor, K., Neff, D.M. & Pitman, S., (2018). Burnout in mental health professionals: A systematic review and meta-analysis of prevalence and determinants. European Psychiatry, 53, 74-99.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021). Registered Nurses. Web.
Van der Heijden, B., Christine, B, & Yingzi, X. (2019). Impact of job demands and resources on nurses’ burnout and occupational turnover intention towards an age-moderated mediation model for the nursing profession. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(11).