Rosales SA, Pavón LP

Language: Spanish
References: 0
Page: 43-54
PDF size: 193.75 Kb.

ABSTRACT

Historically speaking, the work conditions have evolved, improving working conditions from reducing physical efforts to enhancing environmental and hygienic standards, thanks to human rights and new forms of business production. Now, workers’ health is recognized as a fundamental right. Now, the focus of occupational hazards is especially on psychosocial factors that can generate occupational stress and, subsequently, burnout syndrome. This syndrome negatively affects work performance and quality life and relations, and it shows through three dimensions, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishment. Burnout syndrome can be developed especially by the healthcare workers, reducing the quality of the care provided to patients, even increasing the probability of medical errors. The first description of burnout syndrome was between 1960 and 1970, then, Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter popularized it, laying the groundwork for its detection.
The COVID-19 pandemic has just highlighted the relevance of burnout syndrome in the healthcare worker population, increasing anxiety and stress levels due to additional workload, among other factors.
It is necessary to develop and implement strategies that aim to prevent and manage the burnout syndrome. The decision makers can implement stress management sessions and reduce the working hours, especially for resident staff. Service managers should equitably distribute workload and recognize the healthcare staff efforts. At the individual level, it is important to develop abilities to manage stress and maintain a balance between work and personal life.
Despite the attempts to control the burnout syndrome and treat it as a genuine issue, its prevalence remains high among the healthcare workers. This highlights the need to work even more to modify working conditions and ensure that the improvement of healthcare systems is not at the expense of workers’ health.