A survey of psychological practitioner workplace wellbeing.

The wellbeing of the psychological workforce is an area of concern. However, it has been sparsely studied in an holistic manner encompassing workplace wellbeing as well as burnout. This study reports a survey of 1,678 psychological practitioners accessed through professional networks. The short Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (SWEMWBS) and the Psychological Practitioner Workplace Wellbeing Measure (PPWWM) were administered with a demographic questionnaire. The mean for the SWEMWBS was below that of a national population survey. The inter-correlation of these tests was.61. Subgroup analyses showed significant differences: assistant psychologists, counsellors and psychological wellbeing practitioners demonstrated better than average workplace wellbeing. But for general wellbeing (SWEMWBS) trainee clinical psychologists and assistant psychologists showed lower than average wellbeing while psychological wellbeing practitioners were higher than average. Other factors associated with wellbeing were: contract type -both measures (higher workplace wellbeing in those with temporary contracts and the self-employed); employment sector -for PPWWM only (private organisation/independent workers and third sector/charitable organisation workers scored above the PPWWM mean); ethnicity - for both measures (Asian groups except Chinese had higher wellbeing than average for the PPWWM and SWEMWBS); disability was strongly associated with lower wellbeing on both measures. Harassment, feeling depressed or a failure and wanting to leave the NHS were associated with lower wellbeing. Greater age, pay and years of service were negatively correlated with wellbeing. A five-factor structure was obtained with this sample. The results confirmed psychological practitioners as an at-risk group and identified a number of factors associated with workplace wellbeing.