The purpose of this study was to investigate the causes of burnout experienced by physical therapists treating stroke patients, the effects of burnout experience, and ways to overcome burnout with phenomenological methodology.
The subjects include fo...
The purpose of this study was to investigate the causes of burnout experienced by physical therapists treating stroke patients, the effects of burnout experience, and ways to overcome burnout with phenomenological methodology.
The subjects include four male and five female physical therapists working for a rehabilitation hospital in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. Date were collected by doing interviews with them. Collected data were analyzed according to the analysis process of Moustakas. The analysis results were as follows:
First, burnout causes were categorized into five theme groups and 12 themes. The 5 theme groups include working environment, therapist's treatment process, relationship with patient, employer's attitude, and medical malpractice. The 12 themes include conflict with colleague, job overload, limitation of physical strength and physical damage, treatment limitation, burden with treatment satisfaction, loss of goal orientation regarding act of treatment, neglect of female therapist, psychological stress from patient attitude, confrontation of opinion with the employer, low value recognition of therapist, no possibility for wage raise, and burden with medical malpractice.
Second, the effects of burn experience included six theme groups and 15 themes. The six theme groups were therapist's self-psychological influence, physical influence, influence on patient, influence on employee, influence on family, and influence on treatment. The 15 themes include escape from reality, helplessness with work, loss of meaning of life, anxiety about medical malpractice, physical exhaustion, worry about health, guilt for patient, negative emotion about patient, feeling sorry about supervisor, dissatisfaction with fellow therapist, hiding from family, being distant from family, killing time, uniform act of treatment, and passive treatment.
Third, the ways to overcome burnout include five theme groups and 11 themes. The five theme groups were overcoming treatment limitation, relationship with others, improvement of working environment, exploration of self, and goal setting for a new life. The 11 themes include new motivation through education, help from others for treatment method, sharing difficulty, advice from experienced people, positive support from people around me, mutual cooperation among therapists, secure for personal recharging time, reflecting on and developing self, checking my mental state, new challenge based on reality, and expansion of new life domain.
The phenomenological analysis results of causes of burnout experienced by physical therapists treating stroke patients, the effects of burnout experience, and ways to overcome burnout identify three categories, 16 theme groups, 38 themes, and 255 pieces of meaning content.
The study results will hopefully lead to more in-depth study on burnout experienced by physical therapists through more qualitative and quantitative researches.