Mental Health Among Firefighters: Understanding the Mental Health Risks, Treatment Barriers, and Coping Strategies

Details

• Personal Author:
  Buchbinder M ; Jenkins T
• Description:
  With COVID-19 intensifying longstanding patterns of stress, overwork, and disillusionment among the healthcare workforce, burnout is at an all-time high in medicine. Critical care clinicians have some of the highest rates of burnout of all specialties - as high a 70% prevalence among physicians and up to 80% among nurses. Burnout is an occupational phenomenon characterized by 1) fatigue or exhaustion, 2) negative feelings toward one's job, and 3) reduced professional efficacy. It is associated with higher rates of mental disorders and psychological distress and has potential negative repercussions for patient safety and care. Growing media attention and expanding research on burnout have brought increased recognition that burnout is a significant problem facing the healthcare workforce. Yet most studies have focused on individual-level causes and solutions, such as mindfulness training, yoga, and other relaxation-based exercises - interventions that do little to identify and respond to the broader structural (i.e., extra-individual) forces shaping clinician burnout. In 1975, the medical sociologist and epidemiologist John McKinlay popularized the metaphor of "upstream" factors contributing to healthcare problems. ... Because burnout is a product of the work environment, upstream interventions aimed at organizational units, institutions, health professions, and health systems will be essential to addressing the epidemic of healthcare worker burnout. Our model for clinician burnout suggests that there are multiple nested layers for intervention as we move progressively upstream. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Communicable Diseases Health Personnel Mental Health Nervous System Occupational Health Safety Stress, Psychological
• Keywords:
  COVID-19 Health Care Personnel Job Stress Long Work Hours Mental Health Nurses Physicians Psychological Responses Work Organization
• ISSN:
  2329-6933
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  North Carolina ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  19
• Issue:
  9
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20066007
• Citation:
  Ann Am Thorac Soc 2022 Sep; 19(9):1443-1445
• Contact Point Address:
  Mara Buchbinder, Ph.D., Department of Social Medicine, Center for Bioethics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 333 S. Columbia Street, 341A MacNider Hall CB 7420, Chapel Hill, NC 27599
• Email:
  mara_buchbinder@med.unc.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2022
• Performing Organization:
  University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20210901
• Source Full Name:
  Annals of the American Thoracic Society
• End Date:
  20230831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:f8c47df4ee3b615c871f6883799f9b6530de0da22f9844623f480ab41d509b3789a365ebffaa650307725cc734e540c60fa3a72e994c5cff944fc7ce44d84f4e
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/209095/cdc_209095_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.05 MB ]