An evaluation of the problem of professional burnout and the impact of professional burnout on decisions about labour-related migration among middle and senior healthcare professionals

Background. Healthcare professionals constitute a professional group highly vulnerable to work-related burnout. Numerous scientific studies, including the own research, indicate that the symptoms of burnout can be seen in from 20% to even 60% of researched populations. Meanwhile, over the last several years we have been able to observe the phenomenon of increased labour-related migration. Therefore, we decided to investigate if the initial reasons for making decisions about migration are related to professional burnout. Material and methods. The study was designed as a questionnaire using the modified Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI), the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), and the author's own questionnaire concerning labour-related migration. The questionnaire forms were either delivered personally to the respondents or the respondents could find them available on the Internet. Results. We were returned 44 correctly completed questionnaires. An analysis of the CBI revealed that 24 people experienced personal burnout (among them, 5 achieved the results indicating a high degree of burnout), 21 people experienced work burnout (a high burnout degree in the case of 5 them) and 14 people experience client (patient) burnout (high results in the case of 2 of them). All the three criteria at the same time were met by 13 people (29.5%). All the 3 criteria of burnout syndrome acc. to Maslach were met by 5 people (11.4%), among whom 2 suffered from a high degree of it. Having analysed the respondents' willingness to migrate, we concluded that 54.5% of the surveyed had not considered permanent migration abroad, 38.6% had considered such possibility but only hypothetically, 1 person (2.3%) had seriously considered the option and 2 people (43.5%) had taken initial steps aiming at emigration. On the other hand, as many as 23 people (52.3%) were ready to change their place of living in Poland in order to find jobs. We obtained no statistically significant correlations between a respondent's willingness to migrate in search of employment and the degree of professional burnout or the respondent's foreign languages skills, or the experiences of his or her acquaintances who lived and worked abroad. Neither did the degree of burnout correlate with particular medical professions or monthly pays. It did, however, correlate significantly with the fact of being employed in a hospital department (r = 0.32-0.51). Conclusions. All the three components of professional burnout diagnosed with the use of CBI were found in 29.5% of the surveyed healthcare professionals and 11.4% of the surveyed when they were diagnosed with the use of MBI. As many as 38.6% of the surveyed healthcare professionals considered labour-related migration as an alternative. At the same time, over a half of them (54.5%) eventually did not decide to emigrate. We were not able to see any statistically significant correlation between the degree of professional burnout and the willingness to migrate in search for employment or the level of monthly salary. In order to obtain a representative focus group suitable to investigate the process of professional burnout and the reasons for migration, one should conduct research among people who decided to emigrate.