PERSONALITY TRAITS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF OCCUPATIONAL BURNOUT SYNDROME IN MILITARY DOCTORS

Abstract

Relevance. Physical and psychological stressors of professional activity of military doctors can negatively affect both their personal well-being and professional reliability.Intention. To analyze the frequency of psychological signs of professional burnout and related deformations of professionally important personality traits in medical officers engaged in clinical and managerial activities.Methodology. The study was conducted in 2018-2019 at the research center of the Kirov Military Medical Academy (St. Petersburg). The object were the medical service officers (n = 203) engaged in clinical and managerial activitiesy, who arrived from the troops to apply for residency. The complex of psychodiagnostic methods included 50-point IPIP-version of “Markers of the big five” questionnaire by L. Goldberg; psychodiagnostic questionnaire “Deviance”, developed by the staff of the S. M. Kirov Military Medical Academy; “Professional burnout” questionnaire by M.A. Dmitrieva and V.M. Snetkov; “Individual typological questionnaire” by L.N. Sobchik. To identify professionally important person qualities and their subsequent assessment, the officers underwent a survey. It was found out what personal qualities of managers, subordinates and colleagues are valuable (important), or, conversely, interfere with the professional activity. The results were systematized using content analysis.Results and Discussion. The conducted psychodiagnostic examination of medical officers showed that both managerial and clinical activities in the troops can contribute to emotional fatigue, increasing indifference, deformation of contacts with the military, a negative assessment of oneself and one’s professional capabilities. Professional burnout signs were found in 9.4 and 9.3 % of clinical specialists and medical platoon commanders (chiefs of unit medical service), respectively. Statistically significant interrelations are established between professional burnout indicators and such relatively steady traits as excessive propensity to risk, search of thrills, autoand hetero-aggression, inadequate self-assessment, isolation, internal conflicts. The higher need for external control and motivation in officers with more pronounced signs of professional burnout were established.Conclusion. The relevance of professional burnout screening of military doctors and medical units commanders is substantiated. Timely detection of adverse personality deformities caused by professional burnout and the development of measures to eliminate the negative states can play a positive role in maintaining the health and professional longevity of medical professionals.