BURNOUT IN HEALTH PROFESSIONALS IN EMERGENCY UNITS IN NATAL/RN IN THE COVID-19 ERA

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an overload on health systems around the world, especially affecting professionals in the urgency and emergency sectors who have higher levels of Burnout, anxiety, and depression than the general population. In this sense, the present study proposes to analyze the prevalence and factors associated with Burnout among workers at Emergency Care Units (ECUs) in Natal/RN in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a cross-sectional quantitative study, aimed at nurses, nursing technicians/assistants and physicians at the 04 ECUs in Natal-RN. The collection was carried out from July to December 2022 with the application of questionnaires, which contain socio-occupational data, personal clinical health data, personal and family history of mental disorders data, as well as the specific Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey (MBI -HSS) questionnaire. The questionnaires were sent via WhatsApp or accessed via QR code and answered after signing the free and informed consent form through the Google® forms platform. Chi-square test, Fisher's exact test, and Mann-Whitney U test were applied. Multivariate logistic regression identified associated factors, with model fit assessed using the Hosmer-Lemeshow test. In the survey 172 participants were included. The sample consisted of 82% women, with a mean age of 39.63 years (SD 9.52). The prevalence of Burnout in the sample was 51,2%, 47.1% presented high emotional exhaustion, 27.9% high depersonalization and 24.4% low personal fulfillment. An association was evident between the 03 burnout subscales and the youngest age group (p<0,05). In addition to this association, high exhaustion was associated with insufficient personal protective equipment (RP=3,0; IC=1,5-5,8; p=0,001) and weekly working hours above 40 hours (RP=2,2; IC=1,1-4,4; p=0,018), while high depersonalization was associated with daily working hours above 12 hours (RP=4,3; IC=1,4–13,6; p=0,013), and low personal fulfillment was associated with absence or few breaks at work (RP=3,8; IC=1,3–10,6; p=0,013). Based on the results found, it is concluded that the mental health of healthcare professionals in Emergency Care Units is significantly affected, with a high rate of Burnout, even more than two years after the start of the pandemic, generating negative impacts for professionals and the quality of care provided to patients. The findings highlight the impact of occupational stress, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, on healthcare professionals in emergency services. In view of this, it is urgent to create government actions that act at the management, organizational, and individual levels to prevent new mental health problems and illnesses in frontline healthcare professionals and to treat sick professionals.