A third of mental healthcare professionals in Malta suffer from symptoms of burnout, according to the first study of the sort.
Research carried out among inpatient professionals at Mount Carmel Hospital, the Psychiatric Unit and the Gozo psychiatric ward also shows that one out of every six participants are suffering total burnout.
Carried out by psychiatrists Patrick Barbara and Aloisia Camilleri, the study focused on five professionals, namely psychiatrists, occupational therapists, psychologists and psychotherapists, social workers and nurses.
Dr Barbara noted that burnout was a process that kicked off when an employee was faced with chronic stress at work resulting from various factors, including lack of human resources.
It starts with emotional exhaustion, especially when the job involves long working hours and challenging human cases.
This is followed by depersonalisation, where a person no longer feels attached to their job, and, finally, low personal accomplishment.
People in the caring professions, such as that of mental healthcare, could often start to doubt whether they were actually helping service users, Dr Barbara said.
The research study, which targeted 322 potential participants, had a response rate of 71 per cent out.
People in the caring professions could often start to doubt whether they were actually helping service users
Just under 14 per cent – 13.9 per cent – of the participants reported total burnout, meaning high emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and low personal accomplishment.
Emotional exhaustion was recorded among 40.4 per cent of participants and low personal accomplishment was flagged by a third.
When compared to recent data, burnout in Malta is similar to that of other European countries, however, the island registered a high prevalence of emotional exhaustion.
Also, in Malta men suffer more from depersonalisation while non-Maltese health professionals (about 16 per cent of the mental healthcare inpatient professionals) suffer more from depersonalisation and low personal accomplishment than the Maltese.
For Dr Barbara, the fact that the island compares with other countries did not mean Malta should sit on its laurels and be happy with the situation. Burnout presented a lose-lose situation for both employees and employers, he said. When the well-being of burnt out employees suffered, they performed at a lower standard than they were supposed to, resulting in the organisation losing efficiency, he added.
Results of the research, called Burnout Among Mental Health Professionals Working in an Inpatient Setting Within the Maltese NHS, were presented at a national conference on neurodevelopmental disorders organised by the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
While mental health professionals often focused on the well-being of the service users, through the research, Dr Barbara hoped to shed light on the professionals’ well-being. Health professionals worked in a multi-disciplinary team with human resources being the main resource in the psychiatry field, he pointed out.