Intensive OutPatient Therapy for Clergy Burnout: How Much Difference Can a Week Make?

Abstract

A pre-test and post-test quasi-experimental matched pairs design was used to assess the effectiveness of a week-long multi-therapist intensive outpatient intervention process with clergy suffering from depression and burnout. Participants (n = 23) in the "Clergy in Kairos" program of the Pastoral Institute (Muse in J Pastor Care Couns 61(3):183-195, 2007) constituted the experimental variable. Clergy surveyed from United Methodist and Presbyterian denominations (n = 121) provided a control group from which 23 respondents were selected whose pre-test scores in depression and burnout were statistically equivalent to those in the experimental group. The treatment group consisted of clergy from three denominations who self-selected (or in some cases were referred by denominational officials) into the program. At the outset, clergy in both groups reported equivalent levels of conflict, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and depression. At the 6-months follow-up, clergy in the experimental group showed significant improvement of depression, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization scores. By contrast, there was no change in the burnout and depression scores in the control group at 6-months post-test. Findings suggest the usefulness of a week-long multi-therapist intensive outpatient intervention in reducing burnout and depression.

Burnout and depressive symptoms in intensive care nurses: relationship analysis

“…Regarding the profile of nurses with burnout, there is a predominance of young individuals (14) , aged between 31 to 35 years, female, single and childless (15) . A contradictory result was found for the variable age in the literature (16) , but most studies report that burnout has a higher prevalence among younger nurses, since these are considered inexperienced and more likely to suffer anxiety when faced with eventual intercurrences during their shift (17)(18) .…”

“…Corroborating these results, the literature points out that the lower the income, the greater the chance of presenting depressive symptoms (26) ; whereas the higher the income, the greater the chance of presenting burnout (27) . As to the number of hours worked and the number of patients attended per day, the literature indicates that these are considered predictive factors for the development of depressive symptoms (14) . Among the nurses who presented depressive symptoms, the majority worked over 60 hours a week and attended more than 10 patients per day.…”

Predictors of depressive symptoms among nurses of intensive care unit

“…18 As to the number of hours worked and the number of patients attended per day, one international study reported that these are predictive factors of depressive symptomatology. 30 Among the nurses who presented depressive symptomatology, the majority worked more than 50 hours per week and attended more than ten patients, that is, it is believed that the higher the number of hours worked and the greater the number of patients attended the higher the prevalence of depressive symptomatology due to work overload.…”

The Effect of Pastoral Counseling on the Psycho-Spiritual Well-Being of Seminarians

“…There are 20 items with four domains: personal, communal, environmental, and transcendental (Gomez & Fisher, 2003). Raw scores were used and were obtained by calculating the sum of items (Moodley, 2008). A 5-point Likert scale was used for the items: 1 = Very Low to 5 = Very High (Holder, Coleman, & Wallace, 2010).…”