Burnout in Mental Health Care Professionals Working with Inpatients in Open or Closed Wards in Psychiatric Hospitals

Abstract

Mental health care professionals are at risk of experiencing burnout. This cross-sectional study aims to investigate burnout in two settings: open and closed psychiatric wards, and two professions: registered nurses and social healthcare assistants in eight psychiatric wards in Denmark. A total of 114 professionals completed the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory and a demographic questionnaire. No statistically differences in burnout in professionals working in closed and open wards were found. However, we found professionals to score highest on personal and work-related burnout and lowest on client-related burnout. This indicates that patients may only play a minor role in burnout in health professionals.

Acknowledgments

We thank the clinical nurse specialists Jette Christiansen, Karin Kristoffersen and Charlotte Schmidt for collecting the data. We also thank all the participating MHCPs.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Disclosure statement

All authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Authorship statement

All authors meet the authorship criteria according to the latest guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. All authors agree on the content of the manuscript. RJ, IJ, and AC designed the study. RJ, SGP, and AC did the analysis. RJ wrote the first draft. RJ, SGP, IJ, AC, and GKT commented on the following drafts, and all authors approved the final version to be published.