OBJECTIVES: ICU professionals are at risk of developing burnout due to coronavirus disease 2019. This study assesses the prevalence and incidence of burnout symptoms and moral distress in ICU professionals before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 crisis. DESIGN: This is a longitudinal open cohort study. SETTING: Five ICUs based in a single university medical center plus another adult ICU based on a separate teaching hospital in the Netherlands. SUBJECTS: All ICU professionals were sent a baseline survey in October–December 2019 (252 respondents, response rate: 53%), and a follow-up survey was sent in May–June 2020 (233 respondents, response rate: 50%). INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Burnout symptoms and moral distress measured with the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Moral Distress Scale, respectively. The prevalence of burnout symptoms was 23.0% before coronavirus disease 2019 and 36.1% at postpeak time, with higher rates in nurses (38.0%) than in physicians (28.6%). Reversely, the incidence rate of new burnout cases among physicians was higher (26.7%) than nurses (21.9%). Higher prevalence of burnout symptoms was observed in the postpeak coronavirus disease 2019 period (odds ratio, 1.83; 95% CI, 1.32–2.53), for nurses (odds ratio, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.03–3.04), for professionals working overtime (odds ratio 2.11; 95% CI, 1.48–3.02), and for professionals directly engaged with care for coronavirus disease 2019 patients (odds ratio, 1.87; 95% CI, 1.35–2.60). Physicians were more likely than nurses to develop burnout symptoms due to coronavirus disease 2019 (odds ratio, 3.56; 95% CI, 1.06–12.21). CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that overburdening of ICU professionals during an extended period of time leads to symptoms of burnout. Working long hours and under conditions of scarcity of staff, time, and resources comes at the price of ICU professionals’ mental health.

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BackgroundBurnout threatens intensive care unit (ICU) professionals’ capacity to provide high-quality care. Moral distress is previously considered a root cause of burnout, but there are other risk factors of burnout such as personality, work–life balance and culture. This study aimed to disentangle the associations of ICU professionals’ moral distress and other risk factors with the components of burnout—emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and personal accomplishment—suggesting informed burnout prevention strategies.MethodsCross-sectional survey completed in 2019 of ICU professionals in two Dutch hospitals. The survey included validated measure for burnout (the Dutch Maslach Burnout Inventory), moral distress (Moral Distress Scale), personality (short Big Five Inventory), work–home balance (Survey Work–Home Interaction Nijmegen) and organisational culture (Culture of Care Barometer). Each of the three components of burnout was analysed as a separate outcome, and for each of the components, a separate regression analysis was carried out.Results251 ICU professionals responded to the survey (response rate: 53.3%). Burnout prevalence was 22.7%. Findings showed that moral distress was associated with emotional exhaustion (β=0.18, 95% CI 0.9 to 0.26) and depersonalisation (β=0.19, 95% CI 0.10 to 0.28) and with increased emotional exhaustion mediated by negative work-to-home spillover (β=0.09, 95% CI 0.04 to 0.13). Support from direct supervisors mitigates the association between moral distress and emotional exhaustion (β=0.16, 95% CI 0.04 to 0.27).ConclusionsUnderstanding moral distress as a root cause of burnout is too simplified. There is an important interplay between moral distress and work–home imbalance. Interventions that support individual coping with moral distress and a work–home imbalance, and the support of direct supervisors, are paramount to prevent burnout in physicians and nurses.

There is a claim that clinical ethics support services (CESS) improve healthcare quality within healthcare organisations. However, there is lack of strong evidence supporting this claim. Rather, the current focus is on the quality of CESS themselves or on individual learning outcomes. In response, this article proposes a theoretical framework leading to empirical hypotheses that describe the relationship between a specific type of CESS, moral case deliberation and the quality of care at the organisational level. We combine insights from the literature on CESS, organisational learning and quality improvement and argue that moral case deliberation causes healthcare professionals to acquire practical wisdom. At the organisational level, where improving quality is a continuous and collective endeavour, this practical wisdom can be aggregated into morisprudence, which is an ongoing formulation of moral judgements across cases encountered within the organisation. Focusing on the development of morisprudence enables refined scrutinisation of CESS-related quality claims.