The professional in emergency care: aggressiveness and burnout

Abstract

Violence against professionals and the syndrome of burnout, or the professional exhaustion of health personnel, has acquired enormous significance in recent years, especially in emergency care. Only a small proportion of the aggressions against the health personnel come to light, but there is a great volume of submerged violent incidents that are not recorded anywhere. Protocols and registers of aggressions have been created in different autonomous communities to make precise data available so that more suitable and opportune decisions can be taken. The aggressions suffered by the workers fall within a wide range of risks that affect the safety and health of health workers, who are already subjected to high stress that lead to high levels of professional exhaustion (burnout). On the other hand, “burnt-out professionals”, with their attitudes at work, increase the risk of aggressions against themselves and against their colleagues. The priorities of the health authorities include not only offering a quality service to all the users of the health system, but also ensuring that every health professional can work in optimum working conditions, with suitable levels of satisfaction, motivation and safety.