The Mental Wellbeing of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) Workers in England: A Cross-Sectional Descriptive Study Reporting Levels of Burnout, Wellbeing and Job Satisfaction

Abstract

In the UK, there has been a notable increase in referrals to specialist children’s mental health services. This, coupled with shortages of qualified staff, has raised concerns about the escalating occupational stress experienced by staff in this sector. In this brief report, we present cross-sectional quantitative data from 97 staff members working in one Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) in the UK during spring 2023, reporting on their wellbeing, job satisfaction, and burnout. Our findings reveal that over a third of CAMHS staff experienced moderate or high levels of work-related burnout; 39% reported moderate or high levels of personal burnout, but levels of client-related burnout were much lower (13%). Both work- and client-related burnout showed a robust negative relationship with job satisfaction, with higher burnout predicting lower levels of job satisfaction. Only a small proportion of respondents reported high levels of wellbeing, with about a quarter experiencing levels of wellbeing that can be considered indicative of mild or clinical depressive symptoms. Whilst these results are from a small sample in one area of the UK, they present an important snapshot of CAMHS staff wellbeing and are discussed in the context of similar trends reported in the wider NHS sector.