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Mindfulness improves health worker’s occupational burnout: the moderating effects of anxiety and depression

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Abstract

Objective

This study aims to test whether health workers experiencing both depression, anxiety and burnout would show severer burnout symptoms, and the potential moderating effect of anxiety and depression on mindfulness improving burnout.

Methods

This study was conducted in a comprehensive hospital of China in 2016. A total of 924 healthcare professionals were included in this cross-sectional study with a response rate of 82.0%. Maslach Burnout Inventory, Patient Health Questionnaire‐9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Perceived Stress Scale and Short Inventory of Mindfulness Capability were used to measure burnout, depression, anxiety, perceived stress and mindfulness. Univariate analysis, correlation analysis, mediation analysis and moderated mediation analysis were conducted.

Results

Burnout and anxiety group (BA) and burnout and depression group (BD) reported significantly higher burnout scores compared to the burnout-only group (BO) (59.90 ± 15.700, 56.20 ± 13.190, and 49.99 ± 11.955, respectively). Perceived stress was a mediator between mindfulness and occupational burnout, and depression and anxiety significantly moderated the mediation path between mindfulness and occupational burnout (β for stress in moderated mediation models with depression and anxiety respectively: β = 1.8088, p < 0.001, and β = 1.7908, p < 0.001). For participants who experienced a high level of depression, less occupational burnout was reduced as mindfulness increased. Indirect effect of mindfulness reducing occupational burnout was greater among participants who experienced less anxiety.

Conclusions

Depression and anxiety weakened the mindfulness ability on relieving occupational burnout, which could be the potential mechanism of the worsening effect of depression and anxiety.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Nursing and Rehabilitation, Shandong University, No. 44 Wenhua West Road, Jinan, 250012, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Yaoyao Sun, Ying Wang, Mailin Zhou, Bei Yang & Fenglin Cao

  2. Shandong Provincial Qianfoshan Hospital, Jinan, 250014, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Fei Liu

Authors
  1. Yaoyao Sun
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  2. Fei Liu
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  3. Ying Wang
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  4. Mailin Zhou
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  5. Bei Yang
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  6. Fenglin Cao
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by FL, YW, MZ and BY. The first draft of the manuscript was written by YS and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. Project administration and supervision were performed by FC. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fenglin Cao.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of School of Nursing, Shandong University (Date: Sep-9-2016 /No. 2016-R-023).

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Sun, Y., Liu, F., Wang, Y. et al. Mindfulness improves health worker’s occupational burnout: the moderating effects of anxiety and depression. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 94, 1297–1305 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-021-01685-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-021-01685-z

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