Mental health, “burnout” and job satisfaction in a longitudinal study of mental health staff

Background: This study examines whether the adoption of a more community based model in an inner city psychiatry service is accompanied by increasing “burnout”, deteriorating mental health and decreasing job satisfaction amongst staff. Method: Questionnaires were sent annually for 3 consecutive years to all mental health staff working in three adult mental health sectors in inner London. Main outcome measures were the 12-item General Health Questionnaire, Maslach Burnout Inventory and a general job satisfaction measure. Results: There was no significant change over time in the outcome measures, once confounding by job and demographic variables was examined. Being based in the community was associated with higher GHQ-12 scores (P = 0.02) when compared to in-patient staff over the 3 years. Conclusions: These results suggested that working in the community may be more stressful than working in in-patient services. However, there was no evidence to suggest that levels of stress are increasing over time, either in community-based or hospital-based staff.