Child & Adolescent Mental Health workers' reported levels of wellbeing job satisfaction & burn-out

Introduction

In the UK we have seen a rapid increase in the number of referrals being made to specialist children’s mental health services and this, combined with a decreasing workforce, has led to concern around the level of occupational stress being experienced by staff in this sector. In this poster we present survey data from 97 staff working in one Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) in the UK during Spring 2023, reporting on their wellbeing, job satisfaction and burnout.

Methods

All Clinical and non-clinical staff working at a single UK CAMHS unit were invited to participate in a an online survey through Qualtrics. The survey covered respondent demographics and administered the following instruments Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, Short Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale and Short Index of Job Satisfaction.  The data were collected between February and March 2023.

Results

Our results indicate that only 2% of staff reported high levels of wellbeing, 32% reported moderate or high levels of work-related burnout and 39% reported moderate or high levels of personal-related burnout. When considering client-related burnout, the number reporting moderate or high levels was much lower at 13% of the sample and the average level of job satisfaction reported was 19.9%.

Discussion

Whilst these results are from a small sample in one area of the UK, they present an important snapshot of staff wellbeing and are discussed alongside data from other studies that report similar findings.  In response to the CBI questions about whether respondents found it difficult to work with clients (children and young people), the data suggest this was not the case for most CAMHS workers. Instead, factors such as working conditions, workload, staffing issues and funding may be more closely linked to occupational stress.