Authors (including presenting author) :
Ma SY(1), Ko PS(1), Ng HY(2), Wong MS(1), Mak KN(4), Wong SY(3), Cheung KN(5)
Affiliation :
(1)Palliative Care Service, Department of Medicine and Geriatrics, (2)Nursing Services Division, (3)Health Resource Centre, United Christian Hospital. (4)Palliative Care Service, Department of Medicine, (5)Department of Occupational Therapy, Haven of Hope Hospital.
Introduction :
Working with patients approaching the end of life is challenging and emotional draining. Staff have to work through intense physical suffering, grief and existential distress with patients and their families. It was the first time to conduct an online survey for two Palliative Care(PC) teams (United Christian Hospital and Haven of Hope Hospital) to identify causes and symptoms of staff stress and coping strategies.
Objectives :
To gain insight into the work-related stress and coping strategies among palliative care workers in KEC.
Methodology :
An online survey(an English version for medical, nursing and allied health staff, and a modified Chinese version for patient care assistants(PCAs))was conducted between 9 Dec 2022 to 23 Dec 2022. All frontline PC team staff who have worked in PC unit for six months or above were invited to participate.
Result & Outcome :
84 professional staff and 16 PCAs participated in the survey. The overall response rate was very high, 87.5% for professional staff and 94.1% for PCAs. The top three work-related stressors were identified, (1)difficulty in dealing with complex cases, (2)heavy workload and (3)facing suffering. Other sources of stress were related to COVID-19 pandemic. 12.5% of professional staff experienced signs and symptoms of burnout and compassionate fatigue about half of the time in the last six months. Although stress is unavoidable, staff could also recognize working in PC is rewarding. Helping patient facing death, providing holistic patient care and care of the family as a whole are meaningful. Setting clear boundary between work and personal life, maintaining leisure time/hobbies and getting enough sleep were identified as their common coping strategies. Most staff agreed that creating an open and supportive culture in workplace, improving team communication and developing self-awareness skills can help them to enhance coping ability. The level of job satisfaction for professional staff is 7.08 out of 10 and for PCAs is 7.12 out of 10. Conclusion: It is worthwhile to conduct staff survey regularly in PC team to understand frontline staff’s stress and coping strategies in order to prevent burnout and compassionate fatigue.
