Burnout is a pandemic with a prevalence of 27-76% across the world. 31 and 71% of young doctors in Hong Kong in 2012 and 2021 respectively was reported to have experience burnout. It is a topic with both serious personal and organisational impact. The loss of enthusiasm and engagement at work leads to impaired performance for both individuals and teams, increased staff turnover, and poorer quality of care.
There are three components of burnout brought on by stress, namely emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and a sense of lack of accomplishment. So building resilience requires strategies for all of these. Of the strategies, though individual stress management are helpful, organisational interventions have been found to be more effective.
Of the personal methods, various forms of rest that provide physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy are the most important. While programmes to train individuals in stress management and resilience (the most popular being mindfulness workshops) are helpful, self-help strategies alone are not sufficient and may even be counterproductive. Genuine care by colleagues in the recognition of burnout, in line with compassionate leadership, is also required and professional coaching may be beneficial for some.
As for organisations, at the individual level, making sure that basic needs like food and water are met, providing at least 20% of meaningful work are key elements. At the institutional level, maximising psychosocial safety culture (such as community building and work-life integration) would be motivating, while ensuring a smooth working environment, innovation to improve productivity to meet increasing demand, better planning of surge capacity and simulation training in crisis management could reduce stress.
The challenge is in integrating these strategies into the daily operation of delivering quality healthcare.
