Exploitative work relationships in Portuguese healthcare

• Autor(a) principal: Neves, Leonor Isabel Carranca
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/31000
• topic: Profissional de saúde -- Healthcare professional; Exploitation; Depressive symptoms; Síndrome de burnout -- Burnout syndrome; Resiliência -- Resilience; Rumination; Exploração; Sintomas depressivos; Ruminação

Exploitation significantly impacts individuals’ mental health, and in people-oriented jobs, it can lead to a decline in the quality of care provided to others. Even so, exploitation in the healthcare sector, particularly within the context of Portugal, remains understudied. Thus, it becomes essential to delve into this subject so that organizations can gain insight into their problems and act appropriately to enhance their workers’ mental health and overall well-being, with consequent maintenance of a high standard of care. Therefore, the main goal of this research was to study how perceived exploitation affects burnout and depressive symptoms levels in healthcare workers. Additionally, it was also studied whether individual differences could moderate this relationship so that the negative effects of exploitation could be mitigated or exacerbated. In order to see if burnout could be identified externally, the perception of others of the HCWs’ burnout was also studied. The data gathered for this research was through a Qualtrics® survey where we obtained 128 valid answers from HCWs and 25 answers from the HCWs’ dear ones. This data was later analyzed through the SPSS program. Our analysis revealed a clear positive relationship between the HCWs' perception of being exploited and their levels of burnout and depressive symptoms. However, we did not find evidence of individual differences moderating these relationships. For future research, it would be beneficial to seek a higher number of respondents and include qualitative data. Additionally, a longitudinal study of these variables could potentially enhance our understanding and aid in developing possible interventions.