The relationship between emotional labour behaviours of healthcare professionals and occupational burnout levels

INTRODUCTION AND AIM: With this study, it was aimed to examine the emotional labour perceptions, occupational burnout levels, and the relationship between these two concepts by using the Emotional Labour Scale (ELS) and the Maslach Burnout Scale (MBS). APPLIANCES AND METHODS: Our study is a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted with 622 healthcare professionals in Turkey through social media groups without any sampling. In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis test, and Spearman correlation coefficient were used. FINDINGS: In this study, the superficial behaviours of the healthcare professionals in the sub-dimensions of EQ were determined to have the highest average and the profound behaviours to have the lowest average; and also, the emotional labour perception of male health workers was determined to be higher than that of females. It has been observed that while younger healthcare professionals show more superficial behaviours, older healthcare professionals show profound behaviours. Doctors have been determined to show less profound behaviour than other healthcare professionals. It has been observed that as the years spent in the profession increase, the rate of deep behaviour increases. While participants have the highest average of personal achievement in the MBS sub-dimensions, they have the lowest average in the depersonalization sub-dimension. "male", "younger", "newly employed" healthcare professionals, and healthcare professionals without encumbrance have been determined to experience more depersonalization. Doctors have been observed to experience more depersonalization than other healthcare professionals. Tertiary health care services personnel have been determined to be more depersonalized than those of the 1st and 2nd level health care services and their personal achievementsub-dimension scores have also been determined to be lower. Health care professionals working in shift patterns have been observed to experience more emotional exhaustion and depersonalization than the ones working during the day. As a result of our study; a positive correlation has been found between the superficial behaviours of healthcare professionals and their perceptions of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, a negative correlation between their profound behaviours and their perceptions of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and a positive correlation between their perceptions of personal achievement. Also, negative correlation between suppression of emotions and perceptions of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization; on the other hand, a positive correlation has been found in personal achievement perceptions. CONCLUSION: As a result, healthcare professionals in the study group have been observed to exhibit the most superficial behaviour. On the other hand, superficial behaviour was proved to be related to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Doctors have been observed to show less profound behaviour and experience more depersonalization than other healthcare professionals. Those who work in shifts and those working 73 hours or more per week have been determined to show more superficial behaviour, experience more emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. The shift pattern and long working hours are well-known occupational psychosocial risk factors in the health sector and can cause chronic stress. For this reason, healthcare professionals should be informed of emotional labour behaviours and provided with training programs aimed at personal and professional development on emotion management, for healthcare professionals an organizational environment should be created to show their emotions more naturally, possible situations to cause burnout in employees should be determined and studies should be carried out to eliminate burnout. Keywords: Depersonalization, Emotional Labour, Occupational Burnout, Healthcare Professionals, Superficial Behaviour