Job burnout and its impact on work ability in biosafety laboratory staff during the COVID-19 epidemic in Xinjiang

Yaoqin Lu,Tao Liu,Huan Yan,Sunyujie Gao,Qi Liu

doi:10.1186/s12888-021-03555-x

Abstract

BackgroundThe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has increased the physical and psychological stress of medical workers. This study was designed to investigate the prevalence and risk factors of job burnout and its impact on work ability among Biosafety Laboratory (BSL) staffs during the COVID-19 epidemic in Xinjiang.MethodsA total of 7911 qualified BSL staffs in Xinjiang were investigated by electronic questionnaires. The Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) was used for job burnout survey. Work Ability Index (WAI) was used for work ability survey. The prevalence and risk factors of job burnout in BSL staffs were analyzed through chi square test, t-test and one-way ANOVA. And then, the influence of demographic and job-related variables, i.e., confounding factors, were eliminated to the greatest extent by the propensity score analysis (PSA) method, to investigate the impact of job burnout on work ability in BSL staffs.ResultsA total of 67.6% BSL staffs experienced job burnout. There were significant differences in the detection rate of job burnout among demographic and job-related variables, including gender, age, ethnicity, education, working years, professional title, marital status, number of night shift per month and overall sleep condition (all P < 0.05). The detection rate of job burnout in female was higher than that in male. The detection rates of job burnout in 45–50 years old, Han ethnicity, education of postgraduate or above, 11–20 years of working, intermediate professional title, married, staff with many night shifts per month and poor overall sleep condition were higher than that of other groups. The average burnout scores of the Emotional Exhaustion (EE), Cynicism (CY), Reduced Personal Accomplishment (PA) scale were 10.00 ± 5.99, 4.64 ± 4.59 and 15.25 ± 8.16, respectively. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the three dimensions of job burnout, i.e., EE, CY, PE, were negatively correlated with work ability and significantly affected the work ability of BSL staffs (all P < 0.001).ConclusionsOur results suggest that the prevalence of job burnout is extremely common among BSL staffs. In addition, the work ability decreases with the increase of job burnout and the improvement of job burnout can enhance work ability among BSL staffs.

Highlights

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has increased the physical and psychological stress of medical workers
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a disease caused by a new type of coronavirus, which was named as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by Coronaviridae Study Group (CSG) of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses [1]
As the implementers of diagnostic tests, the huge workload and highintensity work will undoubtedly have a negative impact on the mental health and work ability in Biosafety Laboratory (BSL) staffs during the epidemic period, which will reduce the effect of local epidemic prevention and control

Summary

Introduction

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has increased the physical and psychological stress of medical workers. This study was designed to investigate the prevalence and risk factors of job burnout and its impact on work ability among Biosafety Laboratory (BSL) staffs during the COVID-19 epidemic in Xinjiang. Numerous studies have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected the mental health of HCPs. The Society of Critical Care Medicine surveyed 9492 intensive care unit clinicians in the U.S and found that median self-reported stress, measured on a scale from 0 to 10, increased from 3 to 8 during the pandemic [7]. The biosafety laboratory (BSL) staffs, the implementers of diagnostic tests, will undertake a huge workload and endure long-term and high-intensity work during the COVID19 epidemic. BSL staffs, who play a key role in the fight against the pandemic as members of HCPs, are more vulnerable to burnout due to the greatly increased risk of contracting COVID-19 at workplace and the intense workload during a pandemic crisis

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