Morale of mental health professionals in Community Mental Health Services of a Northern Italian Province.
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.
Galeazzi
Gian Maria
GM
Unità Operativa di Psichiatria, Dipartimento di Neuroscienze TCR, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italia. galeazzi@unimo.it
Delmonte
Sara
S
Fakhoury
Walid
W
Priebe
Stefan
S
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