Occupational Stress and Burnout in Professional Caregivers of People Living with HIV/AIDS

As the number of HIV/AIDS cases is still increasing, so is the need for trained and professional caregivers. There are a wide range of clinical challenges that caregivers have to face with the changing face of the disease. But who looks after the caregivers? Their needs are not being addressed as seriously as they need to be. As a result, Stress and Burnout issues are common among them and this is also impacting the quality of care-giving. Burnout is actually a process and not a sudden event and so its identification at an early stage is important. It is high time that this issue should get its due importance and care of caregivers be taken up more actively and effectively. Professionals like doctors, nurses, social workers, counselors invest a lot in the process of care and support but at a lot of times end up being physically and emotionally exhausted, drained, fed up and at times also changing and quitting the job. This leads to a lot of issues and questions that need to be answered through empirical research so that help and coping programmes can be formulated for them in order for them to cope and work better in difficult situations which are common in HIV care.