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Loranger H.L.1, Bainbridge L.2, Davidson K.3
1Physiotherapy Alberta - College + Association, Practice Support, Edmonton, Canada, 2University of British Columbia, Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, Victoria, Canada, 3Self Employed, Summerland, Canada
Background: Psychological hazards, including burnout have been identified as a concern for healthcare workers and are thought to contribute to patient safety incidents, employee absenteeism, and attrition. Trends in healthcare workforce planning indicate that healthcare organizations will have difficulty maintaining sufficient staff to provide safe and effective care in the future due to changing patient demographics. The risks of absenteeism and attrition (career change or early retirement) as a result of burnout will not only exacerbate, but will also be exacerbated by the problem if organizations do not take a proactive approach to addressing the issues underlying burnout including depersonalization, a limited sense of personal achievement, and work engagement.
Although much is known about burnout among nurses and physicians, burnout among physiotherapists has previously garnered little attention from the research community.
Although much is known about burnout among nurses and physicians, burnout among physiotherapists has previously garnered little attention from the research community.
Purpose: To quantify the prevalence and severity of three components of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal achievement), and the degree of work engagement among physiotherapists in Alberta, Canada. To gain further understanding of the experience of burnout among this population, including contributing and mediating factors through qualitative research methods.
Methods: In order to inform the development of the survey, a review of the current literature related to burnout in health care professionals was conducted. With the focus of the project on physiotherapists, the literature search was limited to health related databases, including EMBASE, CINAHL, MEDLINE, PubMED, and Pedro.
No research was found related to burnout in physiotherapists in Alberta, or within Canada.
A cross-sectional mixed methods survey of members of Physiotherapy Alberta College + Association was conducted.
The prevalence of burnout and degree of work engagement were quantified using the Maslach Burnout Inventory Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS) and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9). Qualitative data regarding the experience of burnout was obtained through additional open-ended questions.
Sub-group analysis of quantitative data will utilize SPSS software to identify between group differences within the Alberta physiotherapy population based on gender, practice location, or practice setting.
Qualitative data regarding the physiotherapist experience of burnout and the coping strategies employed to manage burnout will be analyzed using a phenomenological approach and the Braun-Clarke and Attride-Stirling Thematic Analysis Tools.
Results: A total of 250 survey responses were collected. Data analysis is currently underway. Results will be available for presentation in July of 2017.
Conclusion(s): To be determined.
Implications: This study will contribute to what is known about the prevalence and experience of burnout among physiotherapists in Alberta and will be of interest to physiotherapists in other jurisdictions, particularly in light of the relative paucity of research regarding burnout among physiotherapists.
Funding acknowledgements: This study was funded by the Government of Alberta, Occupational Health and Safety Innovation and Engagement Grants Program.
Topic: Professional issues
Ethics approval: The Health Research Ethics Board of Alberta (HREBA) Community Health Committee (CHC) has granted ethics approval of this project.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
