Burnout, resilience and well-being in health care professionals

Social and organizational characteristics of work can give rise to the phenomena of maladaptation, stress reactions, including, in the most extreme cases, occupation-related diseases. Maslach observed how specialists who worked with the public, after a few years, presented a kind of apathy, restlessness, and anxiety in the workplace which, then affected the specialists' quality of life. If burnout can be classically defined the pathological outcome of a stressful process affecting people who practise helping professions, the moderating role of resilience can help promote individual and organizational well-being. We assess levels of burnout and levels of overall well-being perceived by health personnel, especially nurses. In addition, we compare sub-groups of our sample to identify groups of health professionals at higher risk from a psychological and emotional point of view. Methods: Data are collected through online google forms with a battery of standardized psychometric tests aimed at investigating patients’ levels of burnout, resilience, and well-being. These questionnaires included the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) used to assess the level of burnout; the Connor- Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) to assess resilience; and the I COPPE Scale Italian Short form to measure multidimensional well-being. Results: The results of the correlations show that higher levels of overall well-being are associated with higher levels of resilience and that the level of emotional burnout reported at Maslach is associated with levels of overall well-being. Specifically, a positive correlation emerges between overall well-being, assessed with the I COPPE and the CD-RISC total scale (r=0.287; p= 0.0037); and a negative correlation between Masclach-assessed levels of emotional burnout and I COPPE overall well-being (r= -0.250; p= 0.011). Discussion: Although these are preliminary data, implementing short courses or interventions aimed at increasing resilience in health professionals could have an impact, improving personal and professional quality of life. For this reason, if resilience is related to general well- being, working on the strengths of operators could improve the levels of it; to conclude, resilience can be considered a process that can change and improve, interventions on it could also have a positive impact on personal and professional well-being.