Occupational Burnout: A Comparison of Field Research of General and Psychiatric Hospitals in Greece after the Financial Crisis

Abstract

At a time when rates, employment demands, insecurity and stress are on the rapidly increasing, exhaustion and stress are becoming an everyday reality for more and more professionals, with detrimental effects on their health, family and professional relationships. The aim of the study is to evaluate statistically significant differences of professionals between general and mental health hospitals. A questionnaire survey was carried out on 128 employees in general health units and 99 employees in mental health units, in Athens, Greece. The results showed statistically significant differences in the variable of personal achievement to a significant level. Employees in mental health units provide a higher average value for this variable than employees in general hospitals. The variable of personal achievement demonstrated statistically significant differences between employees of different age groups, marital status and educational level. Older employees, married employees and lower-level educated employees have been identified to have a higher mean value as a variable of personal achievement. Statistically significant differences were observed in relation to emotional exhaustion factor among employees of different specializations. Nurses, and subsequently physicians, report higher mean values for emotional exhaustion than managers and paramedical employees who report lower mean values for this variable. Enhancing awareness of the phenomenon of occupational burn-out can lead to development of effective intervention measures aimed at improving the well-being of medical and nursing staff, assuring the best possible outcome with the least possible medical risk and optimizing maximum possible health risk of patients.