Psychological health in health care workers: features of the formation of professional burnout, prevention opportunities

Introduction. The working conditions in medical workers are characterized by high tension, which leads to a violation of the psycho-emotional state in health care workers, including professional burnout, the features of which depend on the neurophysiological type of personality, the severity of chronic stress, and the level of commitment to a healthy lifestyle.

The purpose is to identify risk factors for professional burnout and evaluate the effectiveness of preventing professional burnout in medical workers in conditions of increased work intensity.

Materials and methods. The study included medical workers with indices of the intensity of the labour process of class 3.1 and 3.2. The questionnaire method was used to determine: the features of the formation of professional burnout, characteristics of the type of nervous system, the index of adherence to a healthy lifestyle, stress level, subjective assessment of the psychological state. The analysis of the trend in indices of professional burnout and psychological state after group psychosomatic correction sessions was carried out.

Results. The structure of professional burnout in medical workers was dominated by high rates of reduction of professional achievements (53.8%), the frequency of emotional exhaustion was 25.6%, depersonalization – 30.8%. The probability of developing emotional exhaustion in persons with an average strength of the nervous system was 3.8 times higher than in persons with a strong type of nervous system. A lack of commitment to a healthy lifestyle is associated with an increased frequency of emotional exhaustion. The positive trend in indices of professional burnout and subjective assessment of the psychological state after the preventive program of resonant acoustic vibrations has been achieved.

Limitations. The subjects were employees of a medical institution working under conditions of exposure to the intensity of the labour process exceeding hygienic standards. The data is limited to voluntary study participants.

Conclusions. The features of the formation of professional burnout in medical workers are determined. The effectiveness of the program for the prevention of professional burnout with the use of group psychosomatic correction has been confirmed.

Compliance with ethical standards. The study was conducted in compliance with ethical standards, approved by the local ethical committee of the F.F. Erisman Federal Research Center for Hygiene of theFederal Scientific Center of Hygiene named after F.F. Erisman of the Federal Service for Supervision in Protection of the Rights of Consumer and Man Wellbeing (Protocol No. 6 of 22.07.2023), and the Helsinki Declaration of the World Medical Association (as mended 2013) was carried out. Voluntary informed consent was received from all participants.

Contribution:
Yatsyna I.V. – concept and design of the study, discussion of the results, editing;
Sheenkova M.V. – concept and design of the study, data processing, text writing, discussion of results, statistical analysis, collection of literature data, editing.
All authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version.

Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement. The study had no sponsorship.

Received: July 7, 2024 / Revised: September 16, 2024 / Accepted: November 19, 2024 / Published: December 17, 2024