Healthcare Employees' Social Networks, Burnout, and Health

Introduction: The purpose of this article is to introduce how social networks can be utilized as an effective approach to health informatics and to provide evidence from a quantitative research study regarding the effects of interpersonal interactions at work on healthcare employees' burnout and health. Methods: Tests of moderation were calculated to explore whether interpersonal interactions at work changed the associations between job stress and burnout and health. The study used cross sectional data from a North Carolina convenience sample. Participants were 237 multidisciplinary employees from healthcare organizations who were at least 18 years of age. Results: The results from this study provided evidence that more frequent friendly work-related communication benefitted employees' health, while more frequent hostile or difficult communication was detrimental to employees' burnout and health. Discussion: In this article, an explanation for using social networks to collect quantitative, relational data to determine when interpersonal interactions at work are beneficial or detrimental to employees' health and burnout is provided. The article concludes with a discussion regarding how these results and methods can be used to advance the national movements aimed at addressing healthcare employees' health and burnout. Public Significance Statement This quantitative study highlights the need for collecting data about interpersonal interactions at work when developing and implementing an integrated care protocol. It suggests that policies and programs should be informed by relational data because social structures in the workplace can be beneficial or detrimental to employees' well-being based on the interpersonal interactions.