Burnout: Looking Through a Systems Lens - 2023 Conference

Session Description

Burnout rates within the mental health fields have always been high. Pre-COVID-19, the average burnout prevalence rate for mental health professionals was approximately 40%. However, the last three years have taken a tremendous toll and recent research has shown that up to 67% of mental health professionals are experiencing symptoms of burnout.   Historically, research has focused on burnout as resulting from some sort of individual failure and the need for individuals to gain skills and increase resilience to prevent burnout. Although gaining coping skills and increasing resilience is important, doing those things include an underlying message to individuals that they should adapt to potentially damaging and dysfunctional systems. Current research shows that burnout is not an issue of individual failure but instead is caused by failure in the system design of organizations. It is these system design failures that lead to individuals experiencing burnout. Specific system design flaws that increase the risk for burnout are an imbalanced workload, a lack of control, inadequate rewards, a lack of community, injustice, and a misalignment of values. Looking through a systems lens leads to new understanding of burnout and how to prevent it. 

Learning Objectives: 

• Gain knowledge of the current burnout research
• Gain understanding of the multidirectional relationship between burnout, individuals, and organizations
• Gain ideas for systems solutions to burnout