Wellbeing, compassion fatigue and burnout in APs.

It is important that the mental wellbeing of the healthcare workforce is attended to by managers. While many research workers have looked at issues of occupational stress and burnout, fewer have considered the mental wellbeing of staff. In this paper, we report on the findings from a larger survey of mental wellbeing, compassion fatigue and burnout in health and social care professionals. Here we focus on the findings for assistant practitioners (APs). Some 45 APs took part in our questionnaire survey. They were all completing their foundation degree at the University of Bolton. The group were all quite experienced and most worked full-time. The average score on the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale for our group was 22.96, which is significantly below the average for the general population in the North West of England of 27.70. Only 3 out of 45 APs had ‘high wellbeing’, while 7 out of 45 had ‘low wellbeing’. Scores for trust were also quite low. Burnout was more of a problem than compassion fatigue for this group of practitioners, with the highest score on the item: ‘I have frequently felt weak, tired or rundown as a result of my work.’ While this was only a small study, and as such needs to be treated with some caution, it does reinforce the need to think about the wellbeing of the workforce and the necessity for managers to provide support for APs in their roles