Demographic and situational variations in levels of burnout in European mental health services: a comparative study

This paper reviews the demographic and situational variations in levels of occupational burnout, as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory, among community and inpatient staff in six European mental health services, located in Aarhus and Storstrom in Denmark, Cambridge in the UK, Bodo in Norway, Tampere in Finland and Warsaw in Poland. The overall study design was a time series with baseline and follow-up at six and 12 months. A total of 414 members of staff were assessed in the six settings: 205 in inpatient facilities and 209 in the community. To calculate the influence of sociodemographic factors in relation to levels of burnout, a factor analysis was carried out. Each factor was analysed twice. There were no statistically significant differences regarding emotional exhaustion. Depersonalisation (DP) was higher in inpatient settings (1.73, standard error (SE) 0.04) than in community locations (1.62, SE 0.04). The lowest scores for DP for inpatient settings were observed in Aarhus (1.59, SE 0.08) and in Storstrom (1.65, SE 0.08). Regarding personal accomplishment (PA) the statistically significant differences were observed between Warsaw, which scored high in PA (39.92, SE 3.63), and Storstrom (76.36, SE 4.60), which scored low. Staff who had previously experienced relevant prior training on occupational stress reduction scored significantly lower in emotional exhaustion (EE) (3.75, SE 0.13) than those with no prior exposure to relevant training (4.07, SE 0.07). The study also indicated that men in the study scored significantly higher on DP (1.75, SE 0.05) than did women (1.60, SE 0.03). This may be explicable in terms of men being exposed to higher levels of violence than women.