TY - JOUR
T1 - Burnout and health behaviors in health professionals from seven European countries
AU - Alexandrova-Karamanova, Anna
AU - Todorova, Irina
AU - Montgomery, Anthony
AU - Panagopoulou, Efharis
AU - Costa, Patricia
AU - Baban, Adriana
AU - Davas, Asli
AU - Milosevic, Milan
AU - Mijakoski, Dragan
N1 - Funding Information:
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme [FP7-HEALTH-2009-single-stage] under Grant Agreement No. [242084].
Funding Information:
The present analysis utilizes data from the international survey “Improving quality and safety in the hospital: The link between organizational culture, burnout and quality of care (ORCAB),” funded by the European Commission within the 7th Framework Programme. The ORCAB project includes cross-sectional quantitative and qualitative studies among physicians, nurses and residents in university hospitals from seven South and Southeastern European countries: Greece, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Croatia and Macedonia. Its aim is to benchmark the organizational and individual factors that impact quality of care and patient safety and to design bottom-up interventions that increase both quality of care and health professionals’ well-being. The theoretical model of ORCAB is based on the assumptions of the job demands-resources model and positions quality of care, patient safety and health professionals’ well-being as outcomes; organizational culture and work demands as independent variables; and burnout and work engagement as potential mediators (Montgomery et al. ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
PY - 2016/10/1
Y1 - 2016/10/1
N2 - Objectives: Within an underlying health-impairing process, work stressors exhaust employees’ mental and physical resources and lead to exhaustion/burnout and to health problems, with health-impairing behaviors being one of the potential mechanisms, linking burnout to ill health. The study aims to explore the associations between burnout and fast food consumption, exercise, alcohol consumption and painkiller use in a multinational sample of 2623 doctors, nurses and residents from Greece, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Croatia and Macedonia, adopting a cross-national approach. Methods: Data are part of the international cross-sectional quantitative ORCAB survey. The measures included the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Health Behaviors Questionnaire. Results: Burnout was significantly positively associated with higher fast food consumption, infrequent exercise, higher alcohol consumption and more frequent painkiller use in the full sample, and these associations remained significant after the inclusion of individual differences factors and country of residence. Cross-national comparisons showed significant differences in burnout and health behaviors, and some differences in the statistical significance and magnitude (but not the direction) of the associations between them. Health professionals from Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria reported the most unfavorable experiences. Conclusions: Burnout and risk health behaviors among health professionals are important both in the context of health professionals’ health and well-being and as factors contributing to medical errors and inadequate patient safety. Organizational interventions should incorporate early identification of such behaviors together with programs promoting health and aimed at the reduction of burnout and work-related stress.
AB - Objectives: Within an underlying health-impairing process, work stressors exhaust employees’ mental and physical resources and lead to exhaustion/burnout and to health problems, with health-impairing behaviors being one of the potential mechanisms, linking burnout to ill health. The study aims to explore the associations between burnout and fast food consumption, exercise, alcohol consumption and painkiller use in a multinational sample of 2623 doctors, nurses and residents from Greece, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Croatia and Macedonia, adopting a cross-national approach. Methods: Data are part of the international cross-sectional quantitative ORCAB survey. The measures included the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Health Behaviors Questionnaire. Results: Burnout was significantly positively associated with higher fast food consumption, infrequent exercise, higher alcohol consumption and more frequent painkiller use in the full sample, and these associations remained significant after the inclusion of individual differences factors and country of residence. Cross-national comparisons showed significant differences in burnout and health behaviors, and some differences in the statistical significance and magnitude (but not the direction) of the associations between them. Health professionals from Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria reported the most unfavorable experiences. Conclusions: Burnout and risk health behaviors among health professionals are important both in the context of health professionals’ health and well-being and as factors contributing to medical errors and inadequate patient safety. Organizational interventions should incorporate early identification of such behaviors together with programs promoting health and aimed at the reduction of burnout and work-related stress.
KW - Burnout
KW - Cross-national
KW - Health behaviors
KW - Health professionals
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84973146950&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00420-016-1143-5
DO - 10.1007/s00420-016-1143-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 27251338
AN - SCOPUS:84973146950
SN - 0340-0131
VL - 89
SP - 1059
EP - 1075
JO - International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health
JF - International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health
IS - 7
ER -