Occupational stress, work-home interference and burnout among Belgian veterinary practitioners

Abstract

There have been few formal studies on stress in veterinary surgeons and, in the rare studies available, stress is not examined jointly through the levels of job strain and job engagement, the sources of stress in the issue of work environment and the work-home interference. The authors' goal in this study was to analyse job engagement, job strain, burnout, work-home interference and job stress factors among 216 Belgian veterinary surgeons. Rural practice was compared to small animal and mixed activity. The mean job strain and job engagement level in veterinary surgeons was not higher than what we found in other working populations. However, 15.6% of the group were found to be suffering from high burnout. Rural practitioners had a lower level of job engagement than small animal veterinary surgeons. These small animal practitioners had a lower level of job strain than the mixed practitioners. The level of burnout did not differ significantly across the three types of activity. In comparison to other Belgian and Dutch workers, veterinary surgeons perceived more negative work-home interference. Bovine and mixed practitioners were the most concerned with this problem. The two most important sources of stress reported by bovine practitioners were relations to farmers and working time management (including emergencies and availability).

Practice makes perfect? Skillful performances in veterinary work

“…While life as a veterinary surgeon involves a broad skill set, clinical expertise with animals represents only one part, and participants voiced fears about being found 'lacking' in one (or several) respects of these idealised conceptions (Knights and Clarke, 2014). Part of the shock, articulated many times in our study, relates to the high demands and expectations of clients (Hansez et al, 2008), a significant source of stress where performance must be skilfully accomplished, persuasive and often privilege clients over animal patients.…”

“…Much of the research is restricted to clinical pathology, technical advances, or sustaining injury from human-animal interactions (Hjorth and Roed-Peterson, 1980), and problems of mental health (Allister, 2015), addiction or suicide (Hansez et al, 2008;Bartram and Baldwin, 2010). A minority of studies has drawn attention to professional exclusivity and hierarchical/gendered status (Hamilton, 2013), the complexities of human-animal interactions (Enticott, 2012;Hamilton and Taylor, 2012), and regulatory anomalies (Hobson-West and Timmons, 2015).…”

Impact of the Art of Living Programme on Burnout and Organizational Role Stress among Animal Husbandry Personnel

“…Bano and Jha reported that there were moderate levels of role stress among the employees in public and private sectors [18]. Moderate to high stress levels were observed among the Belgian veterinary surgeons [19]. Gardner and Hini also observed moderate stress levels among veterinarians [14].…”

Measuring positive and negative occupational states at work: A structural and differential item functioning analysis

“…It has been of large use for diagnosis purposes in diverse occupational fields (Bertrand et al, 2010;Hansez et al, 2007;Hansez & Chmiel, 2010;Hansez et al, 2008) and its two-dimensional structure has been validated and replicated (Barbier et al, 2009). The first aim of our study was to check if item wording has an impact on PNOSI structure.…”

“…The PNOSI has been of large use for diagnostic purposes in Frenchspeaking countries (especially Belgium and France), collecting more than 30,000 data from diverse occupational fields such as veterinary practice, farming, informatics, printing, pharmaceutics, and the energy, public or health care sectors (Bertrand, Peters, Perée & Hansez, 2010;Hansez, Bracci & Bertrand, 2007;Hansez & Chmiel, 2010;Hansez, Schins & Rollin, 2008). A recent study of Barbier, Peters & Hansez (2009) has confirmed the two-factor structure of the PNOSI.…”