Burnout syndrome, compassion satisfaction, occupational stress, and resilience among experienced audiologists.

Abstract

Objective: The first aim of the research was to provide insight into compassion satisfaction, resilience, burnout syndrome, and overall occupational stress levels of experienced audiologists. Another aim was to investigate variables that significantly predicted burnout syndrome. Finally, the study sought to investigate the top occupational stressors impacting audiologists and to see whether these stressors differed based on practice type.

Design: An online questionnaire consisting of the Audiology Occupational Stress Questionnaire (AOSQ), the compassion satisfaction, and compassion fatigue subscales of the Professional Quality of Life Scale Version 5 (ProQOL, version 5), the 10 question version of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10), and a series of demographic questions.

Study Sample: 59 audiologists with more than 5 years of experience completed the survey. The clinicians were actively practicing in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, America, Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.

Results: The results illustrated that no audiologists experienced high levels of burnout or low compassion satisfaction scores. Significant positive correlations existed between resilience and compassion satisfaction, and between burnout syndrome and overall occupational stress. Significant negative correlations were found between resilience and burnout syndrome, burnout syndrome and compassion satisfaction, compassion satisfaction and overall occupational stress, and resilience and overall occupational stress. Resilience (p = .015), compassion satisfaction (p <.001), and overall occupational stress (p <.001) were identified as being significant predictors of burnout syndrome. The top five occupational stressors for audiologists were reported as being staff shortages, administration duties, paperwork and

patient reports, patient or family expectations to fix a clients hearing, and the amount of time available with each patient. There was minimal difference between public and private audiologists when it came to how much various occupational stressors impacted them. The differences in responses for each stressor always remained below 1 Likert point, suggesting that the stressors impacted all audiologists in a similar way regardless of practice type.

Conclusions: The research analyses burnout syndrome, compassion satisfaction, resilience, and occupational stress in experienced audiologists. Audiologists appear to experience high levels of professional quality of life based on no clinicians experiencing high levels of burnout or low levels of compassion satisfaction. As compassion satisfaction, resilience, and overall occupational stress were all significant predictors of burnout syndrome, they could be targeted in future interventions to enhance audiologist professional quality of life. Likewise, the identification of the top audiology specific occupational stressors could be useful in targeted interventions to enhance clinician wellbeing.