Att arbeta med psykisk ohälsa – hur hälsosamt är det? Arbetsförmåga och tidiga tecken på utmattning hos psykiatripersonal

Sammanfattning: The objective of the present study was to examine the work ability and early signs of exhaustion among psychiatric health‐care workers in Sweden. Furthermore, the study examined covariation between work ability and degree of exhaustion and also whether factors such as workplace and occupational title was correlated with incipient exhaustion. A survey of demographic variables, the Lund University Checklist for Incipient Exhaustion (LUCIE) and the Work Ability Index (WAI) were distributed to workers in about 20 psychiatric units. The survey was answered by 236 people with an average age of 48 years (SD = 11.68). The participants had in average worked for 15.2 years (SD = 12.5) in the psychiatric health care. The results showed that the prevalence of early signs of exhaustion measured with LUCIE was 32.8 percent. Of these, 16.2 percent had mild symptoms, 13.1 percent mild to moderate symptoms and 3.5 percent severe symptoms. Measured with WAI, 16.2 percent of the respondents evaluated their work ability as excellent, 52.1 percent as good, 25.2 percent as moderate and 6.4 percent as poor. Work ability had a significant covariance with incipient exhaustion, 17 percent of the variance in LUCIE was explained by work ability. The study is probably the first to demonstrate a link between work ability measured with WAI and early signs of exhaustion measured with LUCIE. Factors such as workplace, gender, occupational title, psychotherapist education and working hours had no significant covariance with incipient exhaustion. Overall, the study showed that a majority of the participants experienced a good work ability and were not in a high risk of developing exhaustion disorder. The work ability and early signs of exhaustion in this sample was consistent with prevalence rates from the normal population.