Dataset Information

Professional quality of life and burnout among medical physicists working in radiation oncology: The role of alexithymia and empathy.

ABSTRACT:

Background and purpose

The professional quality of life of radiation oncology professionals can be influenced by different contributing factors, including personality traits. Alexithymia involves deficits in emotion processing and awareness. Empathy is the ability to understand another's 'state of mind/emotion'. We investigated professional quality of life, including burnout, in radiation oncology, exploring the role of alexithymia and empathy and targeting the population of medical physicists (MPs), since this professional category is usually underrepresented in surveys exploring professional well-being in radiation oncology and MPs may experience professional distress given the increasing complexity of multimodal cancer care.

Material and methods

An online survey was addressed to ESTRO members. Participants filled out three questionnaires to evaluate alexithymia, empathy and professional quality of life: a) Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20); b) Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI); c) Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQoL). Professional quality of life as per ProQoL was considered as dependent variable. The three domains of the ProQoL, namely compassion satisfaction (CS), secondary traumatic stress (STS) and burnout were correlated with alexithymia (as per TAS-20) and empathy (as per IRI with three subcategories: empathic concern, perspective taking and personal distress) and demographic/professional characteristics as independent variables. Generalized linear modeling was used. Significant covariates on univariate linear regression analysis were included in the multivariate linear regression model.

Results

A total of 308 medical physicists completed all questionnaires. Alexithymia as per TAS-20 was correlated to decreased CS (? = -0.25, p < 0 0.001), increased likelihood for STS (? = 0.26, p < 0 0.001) and burnout (? = 0.47, p < 0 0.001). With respect to empathy, the 'Empatic Concern' subscale of the IRI was found to be a significant predictor for increased CS (? = 0.19, p = 0 0.001) and increased STS (? = 0.19, p < 0 0.001), without significant correlation with burnout. The individual's perception of being valued by own's supervisor was correlated to increased CS (? = 0.23, p < 0.001), and decreased burnout (? = -0.29, p < 0.001).

Conclusions

Alexithymic personality trait increased the likelihood to develop burnout, with less professional satisfaction amongst MPs working in radiation oncology. Empathy results in higher professional fulfilment. These results may be used to benchmark preventing strategies, including peer support, debriefing sessions, leadership initiatives and work-load limitation strategies.

SUBMITTER: Di Tella M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7807595 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Professional quality of life and burnout among medical physicists working in radiation oncology: The role of alexithymia and empathy.

Di Tella Marialaura M Tesio Valentina V Bertholet Jenny J Gasnier Anne A Gonzalez Del Portillo Elisabet E Spalek Mateusz M Bibault Jean-Emmanuel JE Borst Gerben G Van Elmpt Wouter W Thorwarth Daniela D Mullaney Laura L Røe Redalen Kathrine K Dubois Ludwig L Chargari Cyrus C Perryck Sophie S Petit Steven S Lybeer Myriam M Castelli Lorys L Franco Pierfrancesco P

Physics and imaging in radiation oncology 20200715

<h4>Background and purpose</h4>The professional quality of life of radiation oncology professionals can be influenced by different contributing factors, including personality traits. Alexithymia involves deficits in emotion processing and awareness. Empathy is the ability to understand another's 'state of mind/emotion'. We investigated professional quality of life, including burnout, in radiation oncology, exploring the role of alexithymia and empathy and targeting the population of medical phys ...[more]

PMID: 33458324

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Project description:BackgroundBurnout is a growing problem among medical staff worldwide and empathy has been described as an essential competence to attenuate burnout. Previous studies found job satisfaction and job commitment were affected by the empathy and associated with burnout. This study explores the effect and mechanism of empathy on burnout on medical staff and investigates the mediating role of job satisfaction and job commitment in the relationship between empathy and burnout among medical staff.MethodsBased on a self-administered questionnaire which included the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) to measure burnout, 335 responses from medical staff in Tianjin City, China, yielded data on socio-demographic characteristics, empathy, burnout, job satisfaction and job commitment. Bivariate correlation and structured equation modeling (SEM) analyzed the relationships between empathy, job satisfaction, job commitment and burnout multi-group invariant analysis was used to evaluate whether the model was consistent across different type and level of hospitals and different job and employment type subgroups.ResultsA total of 202 (60.3%) medical staff had low level burnout, 115 (34.3%) staff had the moderate level and 18 (5.4%) staff had the high level burnout. The results of the SEM showed that empathy not only had a direct negative effect on burnout ([Formula: see text], but also had an indirect impact through job satisfaction ([Formula: see text] and job commitment ([Formula: see text]. Job commitment was negatively associated burnout ([Formula: see text] but, unexpectedly, job satisfaction was positively associated with burnout ([Formula: see text]. The results also indicated the model was consistent across employment type ([Formula: see text] = 5.904, p > 0.05) and hospital type ([Formula: see text] = 7.748, p > 0.05), but was inconsistent across hospital level ([Formula: see text] = 42.930, p < 0.05) and job type ([Formula: see text] = 52.912, p < 0.05).ConclusionsOur results pointed out the important role that empathy plays in addressing burnout and revealed that managing job satisfaction and increasing the job commitment attenuated burnout. We recommend that the government should accelerate the reform of the resourcing of different hospital levels; facilitate hospital managers to implement additional training; and support hospitals to strengthen psychological testing and counseling to reduce medical staff burnout.

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Dataset Information

Professional quality of life and burnout among medical physicists working in radiation oncology: The role of alexithymia and empathy.

Background and purpose

Material and methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Professional quality of life and burnout among medical physicists working in radiation oncology: The role of alexithymia and empathy.

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