An observational study in Professional Burnout and Moral Injury, sponsored by Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital. Not yet recruiting. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-07-07.
Sponsored by Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital · Observational
This study will explore experiences in high-acuity medical care settings, such as emergency, trauma, intensive care, and related clinical areas. These settings often involve heavy workloads, complex care decisions, teamwork, and communication among many people.
The study will invite healthcare professionals, patients, important family caregivers, and other related people to share their experiences. Participants may complete questionnaires, take part in interviews, or complete a later online survey. The study will ask about work experiences, care experiences, communication, support needs, teamwork, and the value of professional contributions in these settings.
The goal of this study is to better understand important but less visible contributions in high-acuity medical care, such as teaching, coordination, communication, and support. The findings may help identify areas that can be considered in future research, hospital improvement, workforce development, and policy discussion.
Traditional healthcare policy and management often rely on return on investment (ROI), financial indicators, or other easily quantifiable performance measures to evaluate system outcomes. However, in high-acuity medical care settings such as emergency, trauma, intensive care, and complex critical care, the workload, professional responsibility, decision-making pressure, and team coordination required of healthcare professionals may not be fully reflected through conventional output or financial indicators.
Healthcare professionals in these settings often work under high pressure and high uncertainty, while also facing challenges related to professional development, knowledge transfer, and workforce retention. Some professional contributions, such as teaching, mentoring, cross-disciplinary collaboration, quality improvement, and informal coordination, may represent important but less visible forms of value. If these contributions are not adequately recognized or measured, they may influence professional identity, perceived value, role burden, and long-term workforce stability.
This observational, non-interventional study focuses on high-acuity medical care settings and their relevant stakeholders. The study aims to explore experiences and perceptions related to institutional processes, professional contributions, team interactions, care experiences, and perceived value. Social Return on Investment (SROI) will be used as a conceptual framework to explore value domains that may have public meaning or intrinsic importance but are not easily assigned a market price. Systemic CPR (Communication, Professional Engagement, Relationship) will be used as an observational concept to organize experience domains related to communication, professional engagement, and relationships within the care system.
The study will be conducted in two phases.
In the first phase, healthcare professionals working in high-acuity medical care settings will be invited to complete questionnaires related to work experience, burnout, and moral injury. The Maslach Burnout Inventory - Human Services Survey (MBI-HSS) and the Moral Injury Symptom Scale - Health Professionals Version (MISS-HP) will be used. Qualitative interviews will also be conducted to explore work experiences, care processes, professional contributions, team collaboration, institutional support, and perceived value. Patients, important family caregivers, and other relevant stakeholders may also be invited to participate in interviews to provide perspectives on care experiences and service processes.
Qualitative interviews will mainly be conducted as one-on-one in-depth interviews. If participants prefer a group format and the study team considers the topic and participant composition appropriate, focus group interviews with approximately 3 to 5 participants may be arranged. Participation is voluntary, and participants may decline or withdraw without affecting their employment rights, medical care, or other related rights.
In the second phase, the study team will develop an online anonymous survey based on the findings from the first phase. The survey will be used to collect broader perspectives from multiple stakeholder groups, including healthcare professionals, patients, important family caregivers, and relevant public-sector personnel involved in emergency and critical care systems.
All collected data will be analyzed in aggregate or de-identified form. The study does not aim to provide a final monetary valuation of a single closed intervention. Instead, it aims to identify relevant stakeholders, value domains, support needs, and potential indicators that may serve as a basis for future evaluation, institutional improvement, workforce development, and policy discussion in high-acuity medical care settings.
216 studies on the registry are indexed under Burnout, Professional; 33 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 1,350 is above the median of 223 across 52 observational studies indexed under Burnout, Professional.
Browse Burnout, Professional studies →Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital is the lead sponsor of 291 studies on the registry; 58 are open to participants now.
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The study population includes adults aged 18 years or older with work, care, caregiving, or system-related experience in high-acuity medical care settings. Participants may include healthcare professionals working in hospital-based emergency, trauma, intensive care, respiratory care, and related clinical areas; patients who have received care in these settings; important family members or main caregivers; and public-sector or emergency response personnel involved in emergency care, rescue, health, or social service systems.
Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
For the first phase, healthcare professionals may be invited to complete questionnaires and/or participate in qualitative interviews. Patients, important family caregivers, and other relevant stakeholders may be invited to participate in qualitative interviews. For the second phase, eligible stakeholder groups may be invited to complete an anonymous online survey.
Exclusion Criteria:
Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
Informed consent
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Healthcare professionals working in high-acuity clinical areas within hospitals, including emergency departments, trauma care, intensive care units, respiratory care units, and related settings. This group may include physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, case managers, registry or data management personnel, and administrative staff involved in these areas.
Other: Experience in high-acuity clinical care settings
Adult patients who have received care in high-acuity medical care settings, such as emergency, trauma, intensive care, or related clinical areas.
Other: Experience in high-acuity clinical care settings
Important family members or main caregivers who have accompanied, cared for, or supported decision-making for patients in high-acuity medical care settings.
Other: Experience in high-acuity clinical care settings
Public-sector or emergency response personnel involved in emergency care, rescue, health, or social service systems related to high-acuity medical care.
Other: Experience in high-acuity clinical care settings
This is an observational exposure of interest. Participants are not assigned to any intervention by the study team. The study observes participants' work, care, caregiving, or system-related experiences in hospital-based high-acuity clinical areas, such as emergency departments, trauma care, intensive care units, respiratory care units, and related settings.
Number of preliminary social value domains with potential relevance for future indicator development identified in high-acuity medical care settings
Preliminary social value domains with potential relevance for future indicator development will be identified and summarized from qualitative interview data, relevant open-ended questionnaire or survey responses, and questionnaire or online survey data. Qualitative analysis will be used to summarize participants' experiences and perceived value in high-acuity medical care settings. Descriptive quantitative summaries of questionnaire and survey data may be used to support the interpretation of these domains. The measure will be the number of distinct preliminary social value domains identified as potentially relevant to future indicator development. Results will be reported as the number of domains and a de-identified narrative summary of each domain. The study may provide potential indicator domains or recommendations for future evaluation, but it will not establish definitive or validated indicators.
Time frame: Through completion of qualitative interview, questionnaire, and survey data collection, up to 54 months
No study locations are listed for this record.
Plan to share: No — Individual participant data will not be shared. This study includes questionnaire, interview, and survey data related to work experiences, care experiences, institutional processes, and perceived value in high-acuity medical care settings. Some qualitative data may contain contextual information that could increase the risk of participant identification. Study results will be reported only in aggregate or de-identified summary form.
No publications or documents are linked to this record.
This study is not yet recruiting, as verified in Jun 2026. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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