Psychological emotional burnout markers in psychiatrists-narcologists with different work experience

Abstract

Purpose. The goal is to determine the individual psychiatrists-narcologists’ psychological characteristics with various work experience, that can serve as markers of emotional burnout syndrome (EBS). Method. A sample of 52 psychiatrists-narcologists — advanced training course participant on Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychology, Northern State Medical University, Arkhangelsk (middle age 43.9±14.2 y.o.) — compared two groups that differ in length of service: first — doctors at the professionalization stage (experience of 3.5-10 years (N = 14, 31.8% of the sample)), second — specialists at the professional skill stage (experience of 10 years and above (N = 30, 68.2%)) .Respondents completed questionnaires: (1) V. V. Boyko’s diagnostics communicative attitude test, (2) V. V. Boyko’s diagnostics emotional burnout test, (3) A. A. McLean’s organizational stress scale, (4) S. Hobfall’s Strategies for overcoming stressful situations test. Results. The results show that thenegative communicative attitude, the EBS level and the organizational stress severity in psychiatrists-narcologists do not depend on the service length. The identified high negative communicative attitudecan serve as a second phase EBS marker — resistance. Another marker may be a low tolerance to organizational stress level. Groups with different professional experience differ in strategies for overcoming stressful situations. Second group — more confident (assertive) actions (Mann — Whitney U-test = 68, p < .05); in situations that exceed their capabilities, they tend to use an avoidance strategy (U = 86, p = .073). First group often resort to the searching for social support strategy (U = 72, p < .05). The identified psychological markers allow us to identify the main trouble areas and offer appropriate assistance in special programs and trainings.