Influence of Mutual Support on Burnout among Intensive Care Unit Healthcare Professionals

Abstract

Introduction Burnout among healthcare professionals in intensive care units (ICUs) is a serious issue that leads to early retirement and medication errors. Their gender, lower years of experience, and lower education have been reported as risk factors. Simultaneously, mutual support—commonly referred to as “back-up behavior,” in which staff members support each other—is critical for team performance. However, little is known about the influence of mutual support among ICU healthcare professionals on burnout. The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality refers to mutual support as the involvement of team members in: assisting one another, providing and receiving feedback, and exerting assertive and advocacy behaviors when patient safety is threatened. Objective This study aimed to verify the hypothesis that lower mutual support among ICU healthcare professionals is associated with increased probability of burnout. Methods A web-based survey was conducted from March 4 to 20, 2021. All ICU healthcare professionals in Japan were included. An invitation was sent via the mailing list of the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine and asked to mail to local communities and social network services. We measured burnout severity using the Maslach Burnout-Human Services Survey and mutual support using the TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Perceptions Questionnaire, as well as occupational background. The cutoff value for burnout was predefined and conducted logistic regression. Results We received 335 responses, all of which were analyzed. The majority of respondents were nurses (58.5%), followed by physicians (18.5%) and clinical engineers (10.1%). The burnout group scored significantly lower on mutual support than the non-burnout group. After adjusting for covariates in a logistic regression, low mutual support was an independent factor predicting a high probability of burnout. Conclusions This study suggests that it is important to focus on mutual support among ICU healthcare professionals to reduce the frequency of burnout.

The Burnout of Nurses in Intensive Care Units and the Impact of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

“…The authors [ 20 ] reported that nurses’ emotional exhaustion level in the ICU during the COVID-19 pandemic was moderate, with 34.1% having a high level of emotional exhaustion, 2.3% a medium level and 13.5% a low level. Nurses who had worked in the ICU for a long time had higher dynamic exhaustion values than those allocated to the ICU during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 23 ].…”

“…According to the authors [ 20 ], 11.4% of the nurses who worked during the COVID-19 pandemic in the ICU had a high level of depersonalisation, 68.2% a medium level and 20.4% a low level. In general, higher levels of depersonalisation were observed in men with professional experience between 11 and 20 years, compared to women with the same amount of professional experience [ 23 ].…”

Factores que influyen en el trabajo en equipo virtual en una escuela de negocios

“…Nota: **Demuestra que la correlación es significativa a un nivel de 0.01 bilateral Es importante mencionar que, en investigaciones anteriores (Haruna et al, 2022), se ha observado una correlación entre la variable apoyo mutuo y el trabajo en equipo virtual. Sin embargo, los resultados de esta investigación no presentaron dicha correlación, esto se debe a dos razones.…”

“…Además, al carecer de cultura de apoyo mutuo, representa un problema individual u organizacional, ya que se ha comprobado que un menor apoyo mutuo se asocia con un mayor agotamiento. Cuando no se practica este concepto en un equipo de trabajo disminuye su oportunidad de poder crecer y desarrollar completamente su talento, esta acción no va a permitir que el equipo siga adelante por lo que no va a poder cumplir con su meta, representando un agotamiento y falta de motivación generando incertidumbre (Haruna et al, 2022).…”

“…Así mismo, Haruna et al (2022) , relacionaron la influencia del apoyo mutuo con el agotamiento, encontrando que al presentarse una disminución en el agotamiento da como resultado un menor apoyo mutuo, en este caso el término de apoyo mutuo se asocia como la participación de los miembros del equipo ayudándose unos a otros brindando retroalimentaciones, ejerciendo conductas asertivas y de defensa, finalmente se encontró un nuevo sistema de trabajo en equipo, el cual tiene como objetivo mejorar la calidad, la seguridad y la eficiencia en la elaboración de sus tareas, se destacó que el uso de un programa de este tipo para mejorar el sistema de apoyo mutuo de los profesionales puede prevenir el agotamiento para que el apoyo mutuo no se vea interrumpido.…”