Burnout in radiographers working in a medical imaging department in a general hospital in Malta

Abstract

Introduction: The phenomenon of burnout affects the psychosocial aspect of an individual's relationship with his work. Burnout may afflict all occupations but has been mostly associated with the human service sector including the healthcare professions. The radiographer is a healthcare professional whose expertise lies in obtaining medical images and by liaising with other health professionals, aids in the diagnosis and the consequent treatment of the patient. Like the medical and nursing professions the radiographer's job characteristics and radiographer-patient relationship may subject the radiographer to burnout. Objectives: The study intended to discover whether the population of radiographers at Mater Dei Hospital were suffering from burnout. If so, which radiography team was most afflicted and whether there was a specific time frame when this phenomenon was manifesting. It also intended to explore how factors suggested by the literature as having an influence on burnout related to the mean burnout scores for this radiographer sample. Methodology: The Copenhagen Burnout Inventory was employed to measure burnout. Some questions were also selected from the demand scales of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire to explore how Quantitative, Emotional, Cognitive and Hiding Emotion demands together with Role Conflict, Role Clarity and Social Support bore a relationship with burnout. The compiled self-administered questionnaire was distributed and collected over a 2-week period. The data was processed and analysed using various statistical tests. Results: The highest mean score for the radiographer sample was for Personal (41.76) followed by Work (36.71) and Patient-related (32.1) burnout domains. The percentage of radiographers whose mean score was equal to or exceeded the 50 point or above mark defined as high degree burnout were 40% in the Personal, 27.7% in the Work and 18.6 % in the Patient-related burnout domains. Overall females scored lower than males. Radiographers seemed to be burning out 10-15 years after qualification with the 30-34-year and 35-39-year age bracket scoring the highest mean burnout scores. Though not statistically significant the results show that the Casualty team scored highest for Personal and Work and the Nuclear Medicine team scored highest for Patient and second highest for Work - related burnout domains. Although not all P- values were statistically significant when compared to the mean burnout scores, the factors considered showed a tendency towards an effect on the burnout scores across the domains. Conclusion: The radiographer population at Mater Dei Hospital is suffering a degree of burnout. Managers should be aware and alert for any signs of burnout in their personnel. Education, early intervention and incentives may prevent deterioration of quality of service together with the possible loss of a highly specialized and skilled professional.