AEGiS-14IAC: Burnout prevention - keeping the fire burning.

14th International AIDS Conference


Barcelona, Spain - July 7-12, 2002

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Burnout prevention - keeping the fire burning.

Int Conf AIDS 2002 Jul 7-12; 14:(abstract no. ThOrF1413)

Nagaraja P
TARSHI, New Delhi, India

Issues addressed: In India, where more and more people are being diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, the few qualified health-care professionals and counsellors that exist work under tremendous emotional and other pressure. The pressures are manifold in a culture that promotes silence around issues of sexuality and consequently HIV/AIDS. Under such circumstances, burn-out rates are high and doubly damaging to the work where there is always a need for qualified and dedicated professionals. Drawing on our experiences of operating a telephone helpline on sexuality and reproductive health in India this paper explores the possible causes of burnout in this context. Project

DESCRIPTION: The TARSHI (Talking About Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues) helpline has received more than 50,000 calls from women and men of all ages and socio-economic backgrounds. They speak on the helpline about their concerns around sexuality, sexual health problems, contraceptive decisions, HIV/AIDS, and intimate relationships. The helpline is operated by trained counsellors. The counsellors on the helpline are all women; post graduates in social sciences and having undergone intensive 8-10 week training on issues of sexuality, and related concerns. The TARSHI helpline began in 1996 and in the past six years has had to deal with issues of burnout. LESSONS LEARNT: Burnout costs a lot both in terms of morale and management. The costs in terms of time and monetary resources spent in looking for, recruiting and training new counsellors for the helpline are also high especially when working on limited funds. The paper explores various forms of burnout, possible causes and aggravating factors that may be peculiar to our context.

RECOMMENDATIONS: The paper also discusses strategies used by TARSHI to combat burnout and attempts to evaluate these strategies. These insights may benefit others working in similar fields whether or not they use a helpline as a means of reaching out.

Keywords: AEGIS, Fires, Disasters, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, HIV Infections, Sex Behavior, Health Personnel, Sexuality, Culture, India, Human, Female, Male, prevention & control, diagnosisKWDaegis,fires,disasters,acquiredimmunodeficiencysyndrome,hivinfections,sexbehavior,healthpersonnel,sexuality,culture,india,human,female,male,prevention&control,diagnosis

020707
ThOrF1413

Copyright © 2002 - International AIDS Society (IAS). Reproduction of this abstract (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the IAS.