title: Morale of mental health professionals in Community Mental Health Services of a Northern Italian Province.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore morale of psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses working in Community Mental Health Centres (CMHC) in an Italian Province, and identify influential factors.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty psychiatrists and 30 nurses working in CMHCs in Modena completed questionnaires on burnout, team identity and job satisfaction. They also answered open questions about different aspects of their work. Answers were subjected to content analysis. Regression analyses were used to identify factors that predicted morale across groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Psychiatrists had higher scores on emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation. There were no significant differences between the two groups in job satisfaction and job or role perception. Professionals reported positive relationships with patients as the most enjoyable aspects of their job, whilst team conflicts and high workloads were seen as most difficult to cope with. Multivariate analyses showed that being a psychiatrist and perceiving team conflicts as a main cause of pressure in the job predicted higher burnout.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Simple open questions coupled with quantitative measures appear a promising tool to investigate morale of mental health professionals and identify factors determining morale. Research, training and service development should focus on relationship aspects both with patients and within teams to reduce burnout in CMHCs.
authors.affiliation: Unità Operativa di Psichiatria, Dipartimento di Neuroscienze TCR, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italia. galeazzi@unimo.it
authors.forename: Gian Maria
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Galeazzi
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Delmonte
authors.forename: Walid
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Fakhoury
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Priebe
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002055:Burnout, Professional; D002391:Catchment Area, Health; D003156:Community Mental Health Services; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008875:Middle Aged; D009013:Morale; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D000078329:Workforce; D016526:Workload