Abstract
Burnout and compassion fatigue are professional hazards for OTs. This quantitative study sought to increase the understanding of their relation to professional demographic data, including gender, population served, and setting. The Maslach Burnout Inventory was used to measure burnout, and quality of life was measured by the WHOQOL-BREF and the Professional Quality of Life Scale. This research may help to improve the quality of life and service delivery of OT practitioners.
Primary Author and Speaker: Yan-hua Huang
Contributing Authors: Hans Kim, Monique Le, Jessica Martinez, Jordan Martin, Elmira Maghen, William Leisek
The purpose of this survey research is to explore the relation of burnout, compassion fatigue, and compassion satisfaction with the demographics of practicing occupational therapists. While the topic of burnout has been explored in the field of occupational therapy, both compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction remain new avenues of research. As exposure to client-experienced trauma is a common phenomenon among health professionals, understanding the relation of burnout, compassion fatigue, and compassion satisfaction to the demographics of occupational therapists should serve to assist research aimed at improving both their quality of life and service delivery. We have obtained a sample of 157 registered occupational therapists practicing in the United States. This quantitative study will utilize surveys to explore the correlation between perceived burnout, compassion fatigue, and compassion satisfaction. The survey questions will capture the relevant data considered to be the independent (compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction, and burnout) and dependent (demographic data) variables of the participants. Approval from the California State University Dominguez Hills’ institutional review board was received prior to data collection. Using purposive sampling, the survey questionnaire was distributed among Facebook groups--alumni, professional, and supportive organizations--with membership exclusive to practicing occupational therapists. Participants accessed the survey by a link the study authors posted to the groups’ pages. The Maslach Burnout Inventory was used to measure burnout. Quality of life was measured by the WHOQOL-BREF. An additional quality of life measure specific to health professionals, the Professional Quality of Life Scale, was also used to obtain data unique to the healthcare professional's experience (Stamm, 2010). Data in this research were collected and entered into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Statistics 23. Participant demographics (gender, length of service, etc.) were summarized via descriptive statistics. A multiple regression analysis was performed in order to predict the severity of burnout, compassion satisfaction, and compassion fatigue on several independent variables, e.g. years of practice, types of populations served. Independent t-tests was also performed on SPSS in order to compare two group means of independent samples, e.g severity of burnout, compassion satisfaction, and compassion fatigue of male occupational therapists vs female occupational therapists. The data was analyzed in the summer 2018 and the results will be reported in the conference. Preliminary results show a statistically significant relationship between hours worked and emotional exhaustion on the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Results are still currently being analyzed. The relevance of burnout, compassion fatigue, and compassion satisfaction to occupational therapy lie in their close relation to a core tenet of the profession: client-centered care. Because therapeutic use of self requires OT practitioners to give empathy and genuine engagement, exposure to client-experienced trauma is unavoidable in OT service delivery. Understanding the relation of these phenomena to the demographic data of OT practitioners is intended to contribute to research aimed at improving the quality of life and service delivery of OT practitioners.
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