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Preventing Burnout in Mental Health Workers at Interpersonal Level: An Italian Pilot Study

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Abstract

This pilot study longitudinally evaluated the effectiveness of an intervention aimed at preventing burnout syndrome through the improvement of interpersonal relationship management among Italian mental health workers employed in both public and private services. Indeed, previous findings and a large part of the target group stated that the interpersonal relationship was one of the most important sources of stress at work. The results showed positive effects (i.e. a reduction of the level of Depersonalization), both at the end of training activities and at the follow-up. Since we did not include any control group, the results of this study had to be considered with caution and should be confirmed by future research.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (Project OSHA/SME/2002/4886/IT). It has been designed and carried out thanks to the collaboration among: (a) Social Enterprises such as the Consortium of Social Cooperatives ‘Elpendù’ of Mola di Bari (BA), the Social Cooperative ‘Questa Città’ and the ‘Maugeri’ Foundation of Cassano Murge (BA); (b) the Department of Psychology and the Department of Neurological and Psychiatric Sciences, University of Bari; and (c) the Mental Health Department of the ASL BA/3. The project also included cross-national activities, indeed, a Greek partnership worked on the same project (namely, University of Ioannina, Department of Psychiatry; Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine of Athens, Psychiatric Hospital of Athens and Scientific Association ‘Epapsy’, Athens). We are also particularly grateful to the Editors and two anonymous reviewers that contributed widely to improve the previous version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cooperativa Sociale “Questa Città”, Bari, Italy

    Pasquale Scarnera

  2. Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Bari, Piazza Umberto I, 1, 70100, Bari, Italy

    Andrea Bosco, Emanuela Soleti & Giulio E. Lancioni

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  1. Pasquale Scarnera
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  2. Andrea Bosco
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  3. Emanuela Soleti
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  4. Giulio E. Lancioni
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Correspondence to Andrea Bosco.

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Scarnera, P., Bosco, A., Soleti, E. et al. Preventing Burnout in Mental Health Workers at Interpersonal Level: An Italian Pilot Study. Community Ment Health J 45, 222–227 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-008-9178-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-008-9178-z

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