Some mental health workers fail to recognize the signs that they are burnt out. When they do realize the symptoms, they find it difficult to admit their state to others, says a new study. The research was presented at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society Division of Occupational Psychology in Glasgow, Scotland.
“Burnout has long been a problem in mental health workplaces and remains so despite much research and considerable knowledge of it amongst professional employees,“ said one of the study authors, Marieke Ledingham, a lecturer at University of Notre Dame Australia. “Despite working in this sector employees struggle to avoid burnout and we wanted to study how work places could improve support.”
Ledingham, Peter Standen, a professor at Edith Cowan University and Chris Skinner, an associate profession at the University of Notre Dame in Australia, analyzed 55 mental health workers of whom 50 percent were ages 40 and over, and 33 percent were over the age of 50. Counselors, mental health nurses, mental health occupational therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers were surveyed in a qualitative questionnaire about their perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs about burnout and how these factors affected their well-being at work. In addition, 12 participants participated in in-depth interviews.
The mental health workers who reported burnout felt that their condition make them feel weak and less capable as employees. They also tended to blame themselves for their state and struggled to disclose their burnout out to others out of fear that others would judge them negatively. “It is concerning that some found it difficult to recognize burnout in themselves until signs of physical and emotional breakdown had affected their work,” Ledingham said.
As burnout causes a decline in the physical and mental health of mental health workers and their decreased competence at work, burnout also reduced their ability to recognize that they are burnt out. They are more likely to ignore warning signs such as anxiety, depression, and stress in themselves and are less likely to seek support.
