I always remember something a patient said to me at the very start of my career in optics. When I asked them about their last eye test, the patient said she had been unimpressed by the optometrist. ‘When he was looking into my eyes, I could tell he was really thinking about his next skiing holiday,’ she said.
Stereotypes about the various clinical professions abound and, it might be argued, fail to keep up with reality. That ‘doctors’ are the most stressed would be a widely held view among the public, while few might think the same about eye care professionals (ECPs). The problem is that there are many more factors contributing to stress than simply the pressure of the job itself. Vets, for example, are high in the ‘stress league’, but one analysis of this has shown that this is partly due to a very real fear of losing their jobs to AI. After all, their role is based around interpreting signs to develop a management plan without the need for communication.
The always on-the-ball Professor Dave Elliott got in touch recently to highlight a paper from Australia looking at the stress levels of over 500 Australian ECPs, representing 8.8% of registered optometrists Down Under. What this study has found was that the rates of mental health conditions and burnout among practising Australian optometrists were high when compared with both the general population and with other health professionals. It also found that younger age and burnout were significant risk factors for psychological distress.
Prof Elliott and his team have now received funding for research to determine the prevalence of mental health conditions, workplace stress and burnout in UK optometrists and find the main risk factors. If you fancy undertaking research in this area as a postgraduate, contact D.Elliott1@Bradford.ac.uk. I hope we will be able to publish the results of this worthy study. I suspect the days of dreaming of skiing holidays are long gone.
- Do you have an idea for a clinical feature? Email the clinical editor bill.harvey@markallengroup.com.
- For details of how to submit a case study and earn an interactive CPD point for each of the domains, go to the CPD area of opticianonline.net.