Campus Location
Dallas Campus (Online)
Date of Award
10-2024
ORCID
https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7005-0518
Document Type
Dissertation
Department
Organizational Leadership
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Timothy Atkinson
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Heather Rasmussen
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Mark Weatherly
Abstract
Work-family conflict and burnout in the healthcare industry are significant problems resulting in cognitive, physical, and emotional challenges for healthcare workers and dangerous consequences for patient care. Due to the work-family conflict and burnout they experience, many healthcare workers are leaving the industry altogether. Most studies on work-family conflict and burnout focus on the hospital setting. However, it is estimated that likely more than a million healthcare workers work in the private practice setting. Consequently, this study’s problem is that little is known about how the private practice healthcare setting affects employees’ work-family conflict and burnout. The purpose of this qualitative multicase study was to gain a clear understanding of the role that organizational resources and flexible work-life balance policies, specifically in the private practice environment, play in contributing to or mitigating work-family conflict and burnout. This study had nine participants at six different private practices. Coding data from the semistructured interviews helped the following themes to emerge: dedication/loyalty, understaffed practice, employer flexibility, lacking in policies and procedures, and substandard fringe benefits. The researcher evaluated the themes and research questions using the conservation of resources theory as a theoretical lens through which the role of resources was addressed. Benefits and labor data were also used to evaluate interview data. The major findings were that the participants’ private practices were understaffed and did not provide sufficient fringe benefits, which negatively impacted participants’ work-family conflict and burnout. However, the private practice setting offered great flexibility, which many participants felt outweighed the negative consequences of missing resources.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Busick, Alison H., "Work-Family Conflict and Burnout in Healthcare: A Qualitative Study" (2024). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 820.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/820