The warning signs for staff burnout in long-term care were evident long before COVID-19 hit Canada, with tragic consequences. Yet our governments have never adequately addressed the staffing crisis in long-term care.
When will we understand that the health and well-being of the workforce directly affects the quality of care and quality of life of residents?
Along with our colleagues, we recently published research that shows that even before COVID-19, managers of long-term care homes in Canada were at a high risk for burnout. The pandemic has only exacerbated existing risk.
Our study surveyed 302 managers from a random sample of 91 urban long-term care homes in Alberta, Manitoba and British Columbia between September 2019 and February 2020 and found that managers reported high levels of cynicism and emotional exhaustion, despite high levels of professional satisfaction.
Both cynicism and emotional exhaustion are warning signs of burnout.
Emotional exhaustion, described as feelings of being emotionally overextended by one’s work, has been known to be at high levels among all staff working in long-term care worldwide for decades.
In the study, work overload, lack of time and support and the need to manage staff conflicts were found to be contributing factors for high risk of burn out.
Nursing home managers critically influence the work environments for care homes. Their well-being should be a key consideration to improve both quality of resident care and quality work life in long-term care.
The vast majority of managers surveyed were female, middle-aged, well-educated and were nurses. They usually had responsibility over one or more care units for residents with complex medical and social conditions. Although they reported high rates of job satisfaction, over 10 per cent reported high levels of emotional exhaustion and over 16 per cent reported high levels of cynicism.
In order to retain these leaders, long-term care managers need to be recognized for their work, adequately supported and workplace culture needs to change.
Our study found that too often managers are overlooked and that long-term care homes need to find ways to better engage them, provide administrative support and adequate direct care resources. In the wake of COVID-19, we must also find ways to design more responsive support and assistance programs for them.
We already know that retaining long-term care managers is a challenge. Add the pandemic’s devastating effects and we face a very real danger of losing experienced long-term care leadership during a crisis.
It’s time our governments addressed the long-term care staffing crisis. Residents deserve quality care and, above all, an acceptable quality of life. The people who care for our most vulnerable population also deserve quality of work life.
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