Burnout in Healthcare Workers Due to Covid-19: Causes, Effects, and Solutions

Stress parallels a disease: almost every person has dealt with it before, and it leads to some form of suffering. Whether over a simple homework assignment or a life-altering decision, stress infects people with ensuing anxiety and pain. Certain societal situations can cause stress levels to increase by making it more difficult for the average person to go about their daily life. An example of an event like this is the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected many people with a sickness that spread across the world and killed thousands of people. Unfortunately, healthcare workers became even more vulnerable to stress because of this health crisis; they are dealing with burnout, or mental and physical stress originating from their occupation (Leo et al.). The Covid-19 pandemic produced higher amounts of burnout in healthcare workers, which continues to affect healthcare, so many experts have suggested possible solutions for this growing problem.

Covid-19 had myriad negative impacts on society, but the healthcare worker burnout it produced is a more concerning one. Society often overlooks or dismisses this effect of the pandemic in comparison to other troubling effects. On the contrary, it is just as distressing as the disease itself. According to a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic that surveyed doctors across the United States, 63 percent of physicians detailed experiencing one or more symptoms of burnout from the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2022, while only 44 percent reported this in 2017 and 46 percent in 2011 (Whang). Only 30 percent of this same group of physicians believed they had a reasonable balance between their job and life (Whang). These statistics make it clear that physicians currently struggle with burnout, and Covid only exacerbates the matter. Burnout harms several facets of healthcare workers’ mental health, making it harder for them to succeed at their jobs. Mental Health America distributed a poll to healthcare workers revealing that 86% experienced stress, 77% experienced frustration, 76% reported exhaustion and burnout, and 75% felt overwhelmed (Christ). Since burnout encompasses so many aspects of mental wellness, the fact that healthcare workers increasingly suffer from it displays a serious issue. Even without the added stress from the pandemic, healthcare workers still had an increased likelihood of committing suicide compared to the overall population prior to Covid (Hamadeh). With or without the ramifications of Covid, healthcare workers undeniably encounter strife.

Ascertaining the sources of burnout helps to make the significance of burnout more comprehensible. The inability to take time off because of the influx of patients with Covid, the deaths of loved ones and community members, and the shortage of healthcare workers around the world all contribute to the poor well-being of Covid-19 responders (Hamadeh). During Covid, healthcare workers faced the same situations that normal people did, so it makes sense that it affected their wellness. In the Minimizing Error, Maximizing Outcome Study, the majority of physicians in primary care said that work conditions and a lack of time greatly influenced their stress levels (“Physician”). Healthcare workers are extremely likely to become infected by Covid because of how transmissible it is, meaning they put their close friends and family at risk just by going to work, which can be hard to morally manage (Leo et al.). Burnout is “an unexpected consequence of an organizational culture unable to balance the personal identity of the worker with that of the work organization and the social context,” which highlights the brevity of the problem and its deeply rooted nature in the world of healthcare (Leo et al.). Healthcare workers endure mental exhaustion because of how Covid affected healthcare: a lack of resources because of excess requests, the switching of staff to new areas or specialties, claims that staff fail to properly tend to their patients, and an increase in general duties (Leo et al.). All of these obstacles, along with the normal encounters that come with healthcare, negatively impact healthcare workers by contributing to burnout.

Observing the phenomena that contribute to burnout aids in the understanding of its substantial influences on the healthcare system and staff. Physicians who undergo burnout have a higher chance of quitting, making it difficult for people to obtain care (“Physician”). The loss of doctors due to burnout acquired during the peak of Covid prevents healthcare facilities from handling the worker shortage. In addition, aspects of burnout, such as depersonalization and the inability to properly pay attention or think, imperil treatment standards and the security of the sick (“Physician”). Dr. Tait Shanafelt notes that “we will place our nation’s health at risk” if burnout maintains its hold on healthcare workers, as researchers associate it with a higher number of mistakes and substandard results of healing (Whang). When healthcare systems set unattainably high standards, doctors fail to reach them and become mentally exhausted. These standards do more harm than good, as they cause the quality of care to significantly decrease. Burnout changes healthcare by impairing the abilities of healthcare providers, especially under the barely manageable circumstances of Covid, and by pushing physicians to their mental and physical limits.

Healthcare workers and organizations are aware of the distressing effect Covid had on their ability to function, and several healthcare leaders and researchers are presently pushing themselves to uncover the most efficient way to handle burnout. Several facilities approach burnout in unique ways that more healthcare workers should advocate for: at Bellin Health, groups of workers support doctors by taking care of documentation, forms, and appointments in preparation for the doctors’ arrival; at the University of California San Francisco Medical center utilizes the staff members that are not doctors to manage communications; at Henry Ford Health System, insurance specialists check patients’ insurance before appointments to decrease hinderances to the doctor’s time; and at Hawaii Pacific Health, a project called “Getting Rid of Stupid Stuff” allows employees to suggest duties that they should get rid of (Berry et al.). Employers like Providence, a healthcare organization in Washington state, focus on relieving the emotional drain that defines burnout by emphasizing to group leaders the importance of forming a mentally safe environment, forwarding surveys to their employees that monitor their mental health, frequently discussing the significance of seeing professionals in order to de-stigmatize getting mental help, and creating a “No One Cares Alone” project for the dispersal of stress and duties (Berry et al.). These examples of implemented programs designed to reduce healthcare worker burnout highlight the possibilities in regards to managing this concern.

Many professionals have also suggested potentially implementing uncommon practices. Nurse practitioner Elizabeth DuBois proposes that employers implement a check-in system that can gauge the severity of burnout and evaluate the burnout remedies currently in place (Christ). Healthcare managers hold an immense amount of power, as they can examine the causes of burnout to aid their employees, and they can put less responsibility on the physicians by not burdening them with minor administrative duties (Christ). For example, 24 states in the country grant nurse practitioners the authority to work in lieu of a doctor (Christ). A lack of support from higher-ups is the main reason why doctors initially become burnt out, so the organizations themselves must improve working conditions (“Physician”). Another potential fix to Covid-affiliated burnout is to search for students inquisitive about healthcare to help with subsidiary tasks, which would introduce them to the medical world, possibly succor the workforce shortage, and take some weight off of the workers’ shoulders (Christ). Healthcare workers like DuBois put much effort into advocating for better systems that manage burnout and looking to research for answers to the matter at hand.

Another group of professionals hoped to contribute to burnout-related research to uncover more ways of dealing with it. They conducted a narrative review of literature relating to burnout caused by Covid-19, titled “Burnout Among Healthcare Workers in the COVID 19 Era: A Review of the Existing Literature,” to learn more about the effects of burnout and how to counteract them (Leo et al.). Referencing a broad range of sources, they contrived a list of ways to counteract healthcare worker burnout, which includes devising ways to control stress, encouraging healthy diets and exercise, keeping employees from working back-to-back shifts, preventing front line workers from working for unreasonable periods of time, acknowledging the imperfections and limitations of workers, and so on (Leo et al.). Covid-19 ushered in more collaboration between researchers and healthcare professionals on how to handle burnout while recognizing the conventional notion that healthcare workers must persist through every obstacle thrown at them (Leo et al.). Reviews and research like this allow healthcare as a field to meet the general needs of its employees in order to rectify the burnout that burdens healthcare workers.

Burnout is a dismal experience that a majority of healthcare workers face because of a lack of support from their higher-ups and the expectation to push themselves past their limits due to stereotypical ideals and staff shortages. Moreover, Covid-19 increased the demand for physicians and healthcare staff tenfold, which was extremely difficult for every employee to keep up with. They have to balance the health of others with their own lives, but they struggled to do so. Accordingly, the doctors themselves have begun urging their facilities to act upon this issue by trying out new programs and management styles that take pressure off of the physicians so they do not burn out. Throughout the entire pandemic, healthcare workers preserved the health of every one of their patients by administering shots and tests, prescribing medicines, and diagnosing patients, but they neglected to take care of themselves. If doctors are to keep treating diseases, then they are in dire need of support to mitigate their burnout.

Works Cited

Berry, Leonard L., et al. “5 Ways to Restore Depleted Health Care Workers.” Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business School Publishing, 11 Feb. 2022, hbr.org/2022/02/5-ways-to-restore-depleted-health-care-workers.

Christ, Ginger. “Addressing healthcare worker burnout as another COVID-19 fall nears.” Modern Healthcare, vol. 51, no. 24, 6 Sept. 2021, p. 8. Academic Search Premier, web-s-ebscohost-com.scsl.idm.oclc.org/ehost/detail/detail?vid=4&sid=f506084e-2122-4e79-9414-47a8a85ed550%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=152365709&db=aph.

Hamadeh, Rawan. “Health workers’ mental health: Addressing the invisible global pandemic.” STAT, 10 Nov. 2022, www.statnews.com/2022/11/10/health-workers-mental-health-addressing-invisible-global-pandemic/.

Leo, Carlo G., et al. “Burnout Among Healthcare Workers in the COVID 19 Era: A Review of the Existing Literature.” Front Public Health, Frontiers Media S.A, 29 Oct. 2021, doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.750529. National Library of Medicine, PubMed Central, 29 Oct. 2021, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8585922/. 

“Physician Burnout.” Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, July 2017, www.ahrq.gov/prevention/clinician/ahrq-works/burnout/index.html.

Whang, Oliver. “Physician Burnout has Reached Distressing Levels, New Research Finds.” The New York Times, The New York Times Company, 29 Sept. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/health/doctor-burnout-pandemic.html.