Physiotherapy Under Pressure” A thought provoking research by Biggs et al exploring challenges faced by UK Physiotherapists.

They have explored relationship between perfectionism (the urge to get everything just right), moral injury (feeling awful when work forces us into tight spots i.e. not having enough time for patients), and burnout (that drained, done-with-it-all feeling) affecting UK Physiotherapists. They surveyed 402 physiotherapists and found that 96% are dealing with moderate to high burnout, that’s almost everyone!!!

Perfectionism often stems from internal factors such as unrealistic self-expectations, extreme self-criticism, apprehension about errors, self-imposed performance pressure and external expectations, organisation and service demands, medico legal concerns, and hyper-critical behaviours from peers.

We all may remember a distant version of ourselves, fresh-out-of-university-sky-high-morale-physiotherapist, soon churning within the wheels of a healthcare system model with inadequate resources leaves us feeling hopeless and helpless.

Each clinician would react differently to these internal and external factors and develop adaptive or maladaptive strategies to cope with the demands; but for how long?

Perfectionism and moral injury collectively contribute to a whopping 62% of burnout. It’s a real problem, and according to this study, can lead to dire consequences for clinicians, patient care, healthcare ecosystem and broader society unless appropriate action is taken to mitigate this.

I believe this is not just limited to physiotherapists but to all healthcare professionals within the UK. I welcome the wider discussion on this; Should healthcare professionals need to be more resilient? accept and adapt to the system? or systemic overhaul is required?

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299173