It is estimated that as many as 25% of nurses suffer from burnout (this is an estimate in a population of European nurses), and the prevalence of burnout among both doctors and nurses is on the increase (2006 study). Over the last few years, there has been a shift in focus, from "burnout literature" to an alternative movement of "positive psychology". This focus gives more attention to human strengths and optimal functioning rather than to their deficits, so rather than focusing on burnout, the idea is to find ways of increasing the positive consequences for people at work.
Recent research also support the findings of Maslach and Leiter, who identified six areas of organizational life that are crucial in the development of burnout:
workload, control, reward, community, fairness and value. An interesting thing to note when talking about workload is that many employees' concerns are NOT with the volume of work, but rather with how it is assessed and thus, how it is acknowledged and valued by the organization! (Freeney, Tiernan, 2009).
Why is it important to address engagement, or better said, the lack thereof? Because the correlations are easy to identify, and it all goes full circle: by having a policy of building engagement, levels of burnout will decrease, reducing absenteeism, reducing costs for the health system; engagement is linked to superior performance, thus improving efficiency and quality of care, while bringing a sense of well being for the employee.
So while organizations are talking about 'patient first' strategies, how will this become possible with a significant number of providers being disengaged? Hospitals need to understand that it makes strong economic sense to prevent the development of burnout, and focus hands-on on building true engagement of staff. Quality improvement and patient centred care is not possible with un-caring staff
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