An investigation into the relationship between burnout and wellbeing and its association with individual and organizational factors

Abstract

Both chapters of this doctoral thesis focus on investigating the relationship between burnout and wellbeing and their association with individual and organizational factors in healthcare professionals. The first chapter is a systematic review which aimed to identify, summarise and critically evaluate the research exploring both formal and informal peer support on burnout, mental health, or organizational outcomes in healthcare workers. After conducting a thorough database search, eighteen papers were identified, compromising 4,134 participants. Given the heterogeneity across studies to date, methodological quality was assessed, and a narrative synthesis was undertaken. Despite the mixed findings across studies, when comparing the different types of peer support collectively, informal peer support was favoured, demonstrating improved outcomes on both an individual and organizational level. Limitations and clinical implications were discussed. The second chapter is an empirical paper, which aimed to understand the relationship between psychological flexibility, burnout and wellbeing. It also explored the moderating effects of workplace factors, clinical supervision and psychological training. A total of 188 cancer or palliative care clinicians completed an online survey. Regression analyses revealed that higher levels of psychological flexibility predicted lower levels of burnout and higher levels of wellbeing. A moderation analysis confirmed that areas of work life (AWS) moderated the relationship between psychological flexibility and burnout, while access to supervision and training did not. The results provide preliminary evidence regarding the moderators which may underpin the association between psychological flexibility and burnout. Future research would benefit from further examining the protective factors that reduce susceptibility to burnout within cancer care.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Ellis Baker: orcid.org/0009-0005-5036-3592

ORCID for Nicholas Maguire: orcid.org/0000-0003-4295-8068

ORCID for Warren Dunger: orcid.org/0000-0002-3213-5175

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