A systematic review of the relationship between burnout and coping strategies in emergency workers

Abstract

This systematic review investigates the association between coping strategies and burnout in emergency workers. Three electronic databases were searched. Eleven eligible articles were extracted, and quality assessed. Findings were integrated through narrative synthesis, highlighting clear methodological issues around conceptualizing, and measuring coping strategies and burnout with agreed upon tools. This review found no convincing evidence to suggest coping strategies have a meaningful relationship with burnout in emergency workers, questioning the evidence base for psychological interventions focusing on modifying coping strategies to target burnout. To understand the true impact of coping strategies on burnout, more longitudinal designs, and an agreed, validated measure for coping is needed.

Keywords:

• Burnout
• coping strategies
• emergency workers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).