Psychological practitioner workplace wellbeing

There is extensive research detailing the strong link between healthcare professional wellbeing and the delivery of dignified, safe patient care. While a career as a psychological practitioner is often perceived as fulfilling, it is thought to also generate professional and personal strains which may impact on wellbeing. Paper 1 presents a systematic review examining the prevalence of burnout among practitioner psychologists and the relationship between burnout and specific personal demographic and work-related variables: age, years in service, working hours, gender and work setting. This yielded eight studies meeting the inclusion criteria. Study quality was assessed and data was extracted. Due to inconsistencies with defining and assessing burnout, the overall prevalence of burnout in this population could not be validly determined. However, findings suggest that younger, less experienced individuals and those working longer hours appear to be at increased risk of burnout and/or associated dimensions. Paper 2 presents the development and validation of a new measure to assess psychological practitioner workplace wellbeing. The measure was developed in five stages, followed by an examination of the psychometric properties of the measure utilising a sample of 400 psychological practitioners. The measure was shown to have high internal consistency, high test-retest reliability and high construct validity. Exploratory factor analysis produced a set of six factors explaining 62.1% of the variance in the measure. Results indicate the measure has favourable psychometric properties for the effective assessment of the workplace wellbeing of psychological practitioners. Paper 3 presents a critical appraisal of the research process. This paper includes a reflection on the methodologies used and conclusions drawn, implications of the findings and suggestions for future research. Aspects of personal and professional competency development are also considered