Well-being Of Practitioners Research Articles

Supervision and the Dynamics of Collusion: A Rule of Optimism?

In the UK, Serious Case Reviews and Inquiries undertaken over the last five decades continue to evidence that children are both silenced and rendered invisible as a result of parental behaviour and professional inaction. There have been recent calls for practitioners to enact greater professional curiosity in child protection practice, whilst simultaneously acknowledging that practitioners have less opportunity to be curious in overly bureaucratic and unsupportive environments. Good-quality supervision may provide one mechanism to encourage professional curiosity, but supervision and the supervisory processes therein have received scant attention or scrutiny within such inquiries. Whilst supervision can act as a conduit to encourage good practice, ensuring compliance with standards and promoting the positive well-being of individual practitioners (the core conditions under which professional curiosity may flourish), we hypothesise that complex relational dynamics have the potential to disrupt such endeavours. In the discussion that follows, we shall first seek to explore the tenets of good supervision, before scrutinising the potential pitfalls, with a focus on how one specific factor, the rule of optimism, may be transposed onto the supervisory relationship and, as in front line practice, how it may stifle professional curiosity in the supervisory relationship.

Systematic review protocol of interventions to improve the psychological well-being of general practitioners.

BackgroundThe challenges and complexities faced by general practitioners are increasing, and there are concerns about their well-being. Consequently, attention has been directed towards developing and evaluating interventions and strategies to improve general practitioner well-being and their capacity to cope with workplace challenges.Methods/designThis systematic review aims to evaluate research evidence regarding the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve general practitioner well-being. Eligible studies will include programmes developed to improve psychological well-being that have assessed outcomes using validated tools pertaining to well-being and related outcomes. Only programmes that have been evaluated using controlled study designs will be reviewed. An appropriately developed search strategy will be applied to six electronic databases: the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Web of Science. Studies will be screened in two stages by two independent reviewers. A third reviewer will arbitrate when required. Pre-specified inclusion and exclusion criteria will be assessed during a pilot phase early on in the review process. The Cochrane data extraction form will be adapted and applied to each eligible study by two independent reviewers, and each study will be appraised critically using standardised checklists from the Cochrane Handbook. Methodological quality will be taken into account in the analysis of the data and the synthesis of results. A narrative synthesis will be undertaken if data is unsuited to a meta-analysis.DiscussionThe systematic review will be reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses guidance. This will be the first systematic review on this topic, and the evidence synthesis will aid decision-making by general practitioners, policy makers and planners regarding ways in which to improve GP well-being. Findings will be disseminated at general practitioner meetings, conferences and in professional and peer-reviewed journals.Systematic review registrationPROSPERO CRD42015017899Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13643-015-0098-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Personality profile and coping resources of family medicine vocational trainees at the University of Limpopo, South Africa

Background: Doctors are exposed to various stress factors in their personal and family lives, as well as in the workplace. Stress inherent to the responsibilities and challenges of the medical field may become a health hazard and threaten the well-being of the medical practitioner. Methods: The aim of this study was to investigate the personality traits and coping resources that contribute to the wellbeing of medical practitioners. A cross-sectional study of 44 out of 45 (98% response rate) family medicine vocational trainees at the Medical University of Southern Africa (now known as the University of Limpopo) was conducted. A biographic questionnaire was utilised to obtain specific information regarding the participants. The principal researcher used the Coping Resources Inventory (CRI) questionnaire to assess coping resources, and the 16PF personality analysis (16PF) to establish a personality profile of the participants. Results: The majority of participants (81.8%) indicated that they mainly experienced work-related stress. Thirty-two participants (72.72%) self-medicated. Fourteen participants (31.81%) claimed to experience burn-out and twenty (45.45%) reported fatigue. In terms of their coping resources, 24 male participants (54.54%) did not cope socially (p ≤ 0.008) and eight (18.18%) also did not cope physically (p ≤ 0.024). Conclusions: The medical practitioners had a universal personality profile. They lacked insight regarding the symptoms they were experiencing that warranted management, e.g. depression and anxiety. The medical practitioners in this study did not utilise their social and physical coping resources optimally and reported poor help-seeking behaviour. Keywords: personality; coping resources; family medicine; stress; vocational trainees

Chapter 9. Managing Occupational Stress for Group Care Personnel

Traditional clinical professions, as well as the emerging child and youth care profession, have focused primarily on the welfare of identified clients. While the personal and professional well-being of practitioners has long been addressed in the training and supervision of human service workers, serious efforts to identify problems confronting these workers and potential consequences for both staff and residents are comparatively recent. This classic contribution to the literature highlights ways in which child and youth care has provided leadership on the management of occupational stress in the human services.

Learning contexts

Learning contexts

Supervised integrated screening of low-back pain patients by a neurologist: A randomized clinical trial

In a randomized, controlled design, the effect of psychiatric consultation intervention in medical outpatients with low-back pain (N = 104) was assessed for the patients' subjective well-being and satisfaction of general practitioners (GPs) in their cooperation with the neurologists. The goal of the intervention was an integrated approach towards the patients' symptoms and the improvement of the cooperation between primary and secondary medical health services. The intervention was designed at the health care provider level; the psychiatrist did not see or examine the patient. The 104 patients were subdivided into an intervention group (N = 50) and a control group (N = 54). The major outcome measures were the psychological status of the patient and degree of the GPs' satisfaction concerning the cooperation with the medical specialists. After 6 months follow-up, there was a greater overall decline of symptoms in the patient intervention group compared with the control group. However, it was not possible to specify this effect. Contrary to the hypotheses, GPs in the control group were as satisfied about the cooperation with the neurologist as their colleagues in the intervention group. Yet, the information in the specialists' letters of the intervention group was more often in agreement with the integrated model carried out. It is concluded that great diversity of the target group of patients and the focus on the neurologists' behavior may explain the lack of hypothesized effects. It is recommended that the target group be more specifically defined, and that a more intensive intervention might prove to be more effective.

Stress, achievement, marriage and social support: Effects on the psychological well-being of physicians entering midlife/mid-career

Abstract The major aim of this study was to examine the relative contribution of stress, professional achievement, personality, quality of marriage and family life, social support satisfaction, work satisfaction, average hours worked and family responsibilities to the psychological well-being (life satisfaction and psychological symptoms) of medical practitioners entering mid-life/mid-career. Fifty-nine female and 57 male physicians completed interviews, questionnaires, and daily stress records. The results confirm the central role that stress plays in the well-being of physicians. Pearson correlations and hierarchical multiple regressions showed other major variables examined did not explain additional variance in psychological symptoms, but did in some instances (professional achievement, quality of marriage, social support satisfaction for work issues) contribute to life satisfaction. A path model indicating a direct and independent effect of professional achievement on life satisfaction and a specific causal sequence of stress, quality of marriage and social support satisfaction for work issues is suggested.