Aspects of sustainability in outpatient mental health care: job satisfaction, burn out and cooperation among swiss psychiatrist

Higher sustainability in outpatient mental health care is frequently demanded but hardly analyzed. Cooperation, burn out and job satisfaction do account as indicators for sustainability in health care systems. Knowing their status' and influencing factors among central players provides toeholds for more sustainability in outpatient mental health care.
Objectives
1. Evaluating the status quo of job satisfaction, burn out and cooperation among registered psychiatrist in Switzerland.
2. Analyzing interactions between the three indicators.

Method

A postal survey was conducted among all registered psychiatrists in the German speaking part of Switzerland (n=1.485) via the Swiss Medical Association containing standardized questionnaires concerning work satisfaction, burn out and cooperation in outpatient mental health care.
Results

The response rate was 23.3%; 347 cases were included in further analyzes. A great range of quality and quantity of cooperation was found; respectively depending on the different stakeholders of outpatient mental health care. Overall, quality of cooperation was predominantly high while quantity of cooperation was comparatively low. Overall job satisfaction with was rather high, while burn out rates were rather low. High quality of cooperation proved to be the strongest and most significant factor for an increase of job satisfaction and a decrease of burn out risk. Further analyzes are in progress.
Conclusions

Concerning the role of psychiatrist, present data suggest a rather high sustainability of the Swiss outpatient health care system. Since high quality of cooperation seems to be a reinforcing factor, it should be a central target in developing sustainable mental health care concepts.