Occupational stress and job burnout in mental health

摘要

Professionals who care for long-term and seriously ill patients frequently experience distressing emotional situations and profound suffering. These emotions can include the need to ‘rescue’ patients, a sense of failure and frustration when the illness progresses, feelings of powerlessness against the illness and its associated losses, grief, fear of becoming ill oneself and a desire to remain emotionally distant from and avoid patients to escape from these feelings. Although they are common in everyday clinical practice, such emotions often affect the quality of medical care that physicians provide and their well-being (Meier et al., 2001). Individuals who work in the mental health field have been identified as a high-risk group for occupational stress (Leary & Brown, 1995; Nolan et al., 1995) and burnout (Leiter & Harvie, 1996; Prosser et al., 1996; Thomsen et al., 1999).