Medical-psychological aspects of professional deformation of personality development among emergency medical staff

Abstract

The aim of the work. To study the specifics of professional burnout formation considering the relationship between its levels and typological personality traits of emergency medical staff. Materials and methods. A medical and psychological survey was conducted among 120 medical professionals of the “Regional Clinical Hospital – Center for Emergency Medical Care and Disaster Medicine” in Kharkiv, Ukraine. A representative sample included 85 respondents – emergency medical staff (paramedics and doctors), 28 men and 57 women, aged 20 to 78 years, with a mean age of 40.78 ± 13.43 years. The levels of professional burnout were determined according to the Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey (MBI-GS), the classification of professional burnout risk – according to R. Kalimo, stress triggers and causes provoking it were determined according to the Differential Stress Inventory (DSI) questionnaire. Statistical processing of the factual material was carried out using the IBM SPSS 26.0 computer program and the Vienna Tests System. Results. Emergency medical services staff showed pronounced professional burnout phenomena across all age groups. The high level of emotional exhaustion was most pronounced in 57.1 % of respondents aged 30–40 years and in 42.0 % of those over 40 years, along with this, the moderate level of emotional exhaustion was most pronounced in 1/3 of respondents under the age of 29 years. A high level of depersonalization phenomena prevailed in 40.9 % and 42.9 % of respondents under the age of 29 and 30–40 years, respectively, and a moderate level of depersonalization was almost equally represented in 33.3 % of respondents aged 30–40 years and over 40 years. A high level of diminished sense of personal accomplishment due to a lack of work-related activity value was almost equally represented across all age groups of emergency medical services staff, however, its highest manifestation was in 85.7 % of respondents over 40 years, and the moderate level of this burnout characteristic prevailed in 28.6 % of respondents aged 30–40 years. According to the classification of professional burnout by R. Kalimo et al., only 9.1 % of emergency medical services staff under 29 years and 3.0 % of those over 40 years were at risk of burnout. Nevertheless, some symptoms of burnout were almost equally presented in all age groups, but 71.4 % of respondents aged 30–40 years had the most evident manifestations. According to the DSI questionnaire, 13.6 % and 11.9 % of respondents under the age of 29 and over 40 years, respectively, were of a very tense type of response to stressors in conditions of high professional load with unsuccessful attempts to overcome problem situations. A low level of resilience with successful coping strategies under low-load conditions was more pronounced in 14.3 % of emergency medical services staff over 40 years old and in 9.1 % of those under 29 years of age. Conclusions. The highest levels of professional burnout on the “emotional exhaustion” scale of the MBI-GS questionnaire had more than half of the respondents among emergency medical staff aged 30–40 years, depersonalization phenomena were most pronounced in emergency medical staff under the age of 29 and 30–40 years, and the high level of “reduced personal accomplishment” was equally prevailed among emergency professionals of all age groups, but individuals over the age of 40 years experienced a lack of work-related activity value to a greater extent. One-quarter of the emergency medical staff respondents of all age groups were of the very stressed type with low resilience, being characterized by moderate workload and low coping ability and of the type with low resilience and low professional expectations and demands, but with successful coping strategies, providing the conditions for further decrease in the personal resources of specialists and the progression of the professional burnout phenomena.