Burnout in Egyptian mental health professionals and its relation to their psychosocial and vocational characteristics

Abstract

Background Worldwide studies showed that mental health professionals have high rates of burnout. To date, no studies have looked at burnout in Egyptian mental health professionals, so investigating burnout in this population would be important as it may affect their performance. A total of 156 mental health professionals from three psychiatric hospitals in Cairo (Ain Shams University Hospitals, Abbassyia Mental Hospital, and Psychological Mental Hospital) were investigated for sociodemographic and vocational data using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-Clinician Version (SCID-CV) and burnout assessment tool: the Maslach Burnout Inventory in this study. Results Overall, 57.7% of participants had high emotional exhaustion, 21.5% had high depersonalization, and 47.8% had high personal accomplishment on the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The number of working hours/week was positively correlated with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. The number of night shift/month was positively correlated with depersonalization. Conclusion There was high burnout syndrome among mental health professionals in Egypt.