Healthcare Staff Wellbeing, Burnout, and Patient Safety: A Systematic Review

Summary

Objective To determine whether there is an association between healthcare professionals’ wellbeing and burnout, with patient safety. Design Systematic research review. Data Sources PsychInfo (1806 to July 2015), Medline (1946 to July 2015), Embase (1947 to July 2015) and Scopus (1823 to July 2015) were searched, along with reference lists of eligible articles. Eligibility Criteria for Selecting Studies Quantitative, empirical studies that included i) either a measure of wellbeing or burnout, and ii) patient safety, in healthcare staff populations. Results Forty-six studies were identified. Sixteen out of the 27 studies that measured wellbeing found a significant correlation between poor wellbeing and worse patient safety, with six additional studies finding an association with some but not all scales used, and one study finding a significant association but in the opposite direction to the majority of studies. Twenty-one out of the 30 studies that measured burnout found a significant association between burnout and patient safety, whilst a further four studies found an association between one or more (but not all) subscales of the burnout measures employed, and patient safety.

Key Points

• 1There is a significant correlation between poor wellbeing and worse patient safety outcomes among healthcare staff
• 2Burnout levels in healthcare professionals are associated with patient safety risks, including medical errors
• 3Majority of studies reviewed indicate that enhancing staff wellbeing may improve patient safety
• 4The review emphasizes the necessity for prospective studies to clarify causality relationships between these variables

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