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A Preliminary Test of a Social Connectedness Burnout Intervention for Mexican Mental Health Professionals

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Abstract

Job burnout is a condition that interferes significantly with quality of life and is related to stressful working environments, organizational climate, and client outcomes. The introduction of burnout prevention and “Helping the Helper” programs may produce significant benefits with respect to this issue. In this study, we assessed a weekly online “Helping the Helper” intervention based on the behavioral principles of Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) to improve social relationships, reduce burnout, and improve organizational climate and quality of life in mental health professionals. Six therapists of the Borderline Personality Disorder Clinic of Mexico’s National Institute of Psychiatry participated in this study. Subjects answered three questionnaires (Maslach Burnout Inventory, Multidimensional Scale of Organizational Climate, and World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF) at seven time points throughout the duration of the study. The intervention was implemented between time points three and five. Robust Improvement Rate Difference (R-IRD) scores were computed for each subject to assess for the intervention’s efficacy. Results suggest preliminary support for the possibility of a “Helping the Helper” intervention based on FAP for reducing burnout and improving organizational climate among colleagues in a high-stress, public mental health setting.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Contextual Behavioral Science and Therapy Institute, Mexico City, Mexico

    Michel A. Reyes Ortega

  2. University of Washington, 119a Guthrie Hall, Box 351525, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Adam M. Kuczynski & Jonathan W. Kanter

  3. National Institute of Psychiatry Ramón de la Fuente, Mexico City, Mexico

    Iván Arango de Montis

  4. California State University, San Bernardino, CA, USA

    María Magdalena Santos

Authors
  1. Michel A. Reyes Ortega
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  2. Adam M. Kuczynski
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  3. Jonathan W. Kanter
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  4. Iván Arango de Montis
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  5. María Magdalena Santos
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Correspondence to Adam M. Kuczynski.

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All procedures involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.

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Reyes Ortega, M.A., Kuczynski, A.M., Kanter, J.W. et al. A Preliminary Test of a Social Connectedness Burnout Intervention for Mexican Mental Health Professionals. Psychol Rec 69, 267–276 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-019-00338-5

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