High childcare stress linked with health worker burnout, JAMA study finds

Dive Brief:

Healthcare workers reporting high levels of stress over personal child care responsibilities are more likely to experience burnout and express intentions to reduce work hours or leave their roles altogether, according to a study published this week in JAMA Network Open.
Those reporting high child care stress were 80% more likely to report experiencing burnout, the study found.
Programs to eliminate some of those stressors could be beneficial to both workers and health systems as those organizations grapple with ongoing labor challenges amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the study authors said.

Dive Insight:

Childcare duties primarily borne by women came to a head when schools and daycares shut down during the first year of the pandemic.

Many women ended up leaving their jobs as they shouldered additional responsibilities, leading women’s participation in the workforce to hit a 33-year low in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That’s especially true in the healthcare field, where women make up an overwhelming majority of the workforce, according to data from the Census Bureau.

For the JAMA study, researchers analyzed responses from 58,408 healthcare workers, including physicians and nurses, across 208 organizations collected between April and December of 2020.

Child care stress was reported more frequently among workers identifying as racial or ethnic minorities, who were 40% to 50% more likely to report having high childcare stress than White respondents.

Women were also more likely to report high stress from those responsibilities compared to men, and had significantly greater odds of reporting intentions to reduce work hours than men, the study found.

Some hospitals have leveraged on-site childcare as a benefit for employees, and contend the offering helps reduce employee stress and improve retention and recruitment efforts.

When workplaces are able to accommodate changes on short notice, provide childcare on-site and show awareness for those worker concerns, their recruitment and retention efforts will likely benefit, the study’s authors wrote.