Workplace stress among non-doctor trainees in psychiatric rehabilitation

Abstract

Mental health care settings have long been associated to a specific and long-standing emotional involvement, eventually determining professional stress and burnout in psychiatrists. However, recent evidence demonstrated that also non-doctor mental health workers may be at high risk of developing job dissatisfaction. Previous studies also suggested that the longer exposure to psychiatric settings the higher the levels of burnout. We report here data from a survey conducted among first-year students of rehabilitation courses in psychiatry (n = 44) and logopedics (n = 39), before and after the first exposure to an health care environment over a 6-month term. We investigated their psychological wellbeing and risk of psychiatric morbidity (by means of GHQ-12), levels of burnout (with the Maslach Burnout Inventory) and knowledge about mental health (by means of the MAKS schedule). The two groups were comparable as for the main socio-demographic characteristics as well as for their knowledge about mental health before training. We found a significant difference between students in mental and general health care, with significantly higher emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and lower personal accomplishment levels in the former group, after 6-month training. Such changes were significantly correlated to variations in knowledge about mental health issues and risk of psychiatric morbidity. The implementation of a specific peer support group was perceived as extremely useful by the majority of the students (96%) and had a positive impact on their burnout levels and psychological wellbeing.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.