Work‐related stress and occupational therapy

Abstract

Occupational stress and burnout have been studied extensively in the human services. It has been suggested that healthcare professionals in particular are at risk of stress owing to the caring nature of their work. Articles related to occupational therapy and work-related stress were reviewed in regard to practice in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Sweden. Although the empirical literature is relatively weak for occupational therapy, it has been argued that occupational therapists in health care share risk factors with other healthcare professionals. These risk factors include repeated exposure to distress and difficult behaviour, prolonged interventions and uncertain outcome. Issues such as professional status, staffing issues and the nature of the profession have been identified as additional risk factors for occupational therapists. However, empirical studies that enable burnout rates of occupational therapists to be compared with those of related occupational groups suggest that this may not be the case. Occupational therapists may in fact be protected from some stress and burnout factors. Further research is recommended to clarify the nature of stress experienced by occupational therapists and to identify both risk and protective factors characteristic of the profession.

Clinical supervision, burnout and intent to leave: an Australian mixed methods study of community-based allied health professionals

“…These findings support the empirical literature in signaling that strategies that reduce professional isolation and increase supports through mechanisms (including clinical supervision), are important for retaining allied health staff (Lloyd & King, 2001;Scanlan et al, 2010;Stagnitti, Schoo, Dunbar, & Reid, 2006).…”

“…Research has previously demonstrated that employees enjoy higher job satisfaction when they feel that their work is "making a difference" (Stalker et al, 2007, p. 182). While effective supervision has been linked to increased job satisfaction, studies have also demonstrated associations between ineffective supervision and lack of access to supervision to decreased job satisfaction (Hyrkas, 2005;Lloyd & King, 2001;Wilson, 2015). This may partially explain the variations in levels of intention to leave and personal accomplishment found in this study.…”

“…The rise in the clinical acuity of caseloads means that allied health professionals are more frequently caring for patients with challenging situations (Bland & Rossen, 2005), while sometimes seeing little improvement in their patients' health conditions (Edwards & Burnard, 2003). Practicing in an ever-changing work environment (Sawbridge & Hewison, 2011) where there are uncertain health outcomes (Lloyd & King, 2001) are additional challenges associated with stress. At the same time that allied health professionals are encountering rising expectations of their practice capacity, they are reporting staff shortages (Kim & Stoner, 2008), lack of professional support (Jervis-Tracey et al, 2016;White & Winstanley, 2009) and the requirement to complete escalating and unrewarding administrative tasks (Kim & Lee, 2009;Noblet et al, 2016).…”

“…In addition, burnout has important ramifications for health care workers and these include decreased job satisfaction, poor job performance (Edwards & Burnard, 2003;Livni et al, 2012), increased absenteeism (Hawes, 2009;Lloyd & King, 2001), and depression (Begat & Severinsson, 2006;Weigl et al, 2016). Health care organisations bear a heavy financial cost as a result of occupational stress, burnout and staff turnover (Fredette-Carragher, 2016;Wells, 2011).It is estimated that, in the UK alone, work-related stress costs the National Health Service £555 million annually and a loss of 3.4 million working days (Wells, 2011).…”

“…so getting my clinical supervision organized and constantly every month ….I regained my confidence, so that now I feel like I can still cope." Emily Health care workers are considered to be at high risk of burnout due to the caring aspects of their role (Lloyd & King, 2001;Sawbridge & Hewison, 2011). The current research findings would confirm this view as over 40% of Study 1 participants had scores indicating high levels of Emotional Exhaustion, the core component of burnout.…”